


a new wind blows (and soon it will be spring)

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Anastasia Fusion, F/M, Historical References, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-02-01 00:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12693243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: The more Bucky looks at her, the more he sees features that he can pass off as genuine Romanov. He’s been having auditions for girls for a week now, but he hasn’t seen anyone who looks more like-She brings up her knee and gets him right in the balls.(Or, a Bucky/Nat Anastasia AU.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is not going to be entirely historically accurate! I’m assuming that everyone else isn’t going to know a lot about Russia in the 30s.
> 
> It’s also a mix of the 1997 movie and the musical. Definitely check out the musical if you haven’t heard of it!
> 
> Anyway, if you’ve just seen the movie, this fic is going to go more the way of the musical, i.e. there’s no magic, no Rasputin, no bat or dog (sadly). I mixed the character of Gleb and Dmitry in the musical together to get Bucky’s role in this fic, because I thought it would’ve been really interesting to see in the musical.
> 
> Also unlike the movie, this fic isn’t going to shy away from that whole ‘Anastasia’s family was killed slowly and horribly.’ If you want to, Google the Romanov killings- it’s pretty fucked up. The whole thing took around 20 minutes because they were getting killed very inefficiently.

Bucky only has the dream when it snows. He’s dreaded winter ever since that fateful day when he was ten.

The dream is the same, always: there is a blur, and a girl. At the start of the dream she is the only real thing in the world, and then the house around them solidifies. It’s wooden and small and not at all fit for royalty.

After the house firms up around them, Bucky wipes blood out of his eyes with his free hand. There’s a fresh cut on his forehead, but he doesn’t focus on it. What he does focus on is the girl, who is holding his hand tight, almost too tight. She’s breathing hard and it comes out in clouds as he leads her to the back door.

He opens it and turns to her. _Run_ , he says.

She stares at him, green-eyed and red-haired like all the Romanovs. She’s trembling and he wonders if she saw the bodies in the cellar. Was she there when it happened? Surely not. No one got out of that cellar. But if she was hiding in that cupboard, like she was when he found her, she must have at least heard the gunshots; the screams.

Minutes earlier, Bucky had seen copies of those same green eyes staring up at nothing and the red hair spilling around them along with the blood. Some of the bodies were smaller than Bucky, some bigger, and some were adult-sized. Romanovs and their servants, their most loyal ones, along with the still-whimpering bodies of the family dogs-

His father had covered his eyes with one hand and gripped his gun with the other, pulled Bucky back up the stairs, hissing _what are you doing down here you shouldn’t have seen this_ -

The moment snaps back. The girl stares at him. She’s never introduced herself but she’s never needed to, everyone knows her name: Anastasia Romanov, the youngest daughter. The only daughter, now. Bucky had seen her in the palace when his father had taken him along to work in the kitchens for a day, and she looks exactly the same as she did when he was sneaking glances before he got dragged back to the kitchen.

 _Run_ , Bucky urges again. _They’re coming for you, you have to go_ -

A noise makes them both jolt. Bucky whirls around to see the front door opening, and before he can even register the sight of his father, the hand he’s holding is ripped from his.

Bucky turns back just in time to watch Anastasia start to run. She kicks up snow as she goes, breath clouding out behind her, her hair a stream of red.

Bucky can’t look away until his father storms up behind him, grabs him by the arm and pulls him to face him. His eyes are wide and there’s blood dusting his moustache; his eyelashes.

_What have you done? Why did you-_

He stops and straightens, raises his gun at the girl’s back as she flees. He does not cover his son’s eyes this time. Every time the gun goes off, Bucky jolts. It’s the loudest noise in the world.

Bucky watches the girl grow smaller. Her red hair is a drop of colour in a sea of white.

Blood drips into Bucky’s eyes and he absently brings his hand up to wipe at the cut- Anastasia had swiped a shard of glass at him when he had opened the cupboard door. She must have picked it up from the broken vase Bucky had stepped over on his way to the closet. The cut feels very deep.

Distantly, Bucky thinks of his late mother pricking her finger with a needle; how she would bleed into the sheets she was mending. Blood would hit the fabric and spread.

Another shot rings out. Bucky watches her back and pictures her breath coming in clouds as she runs, and there’s a moment where his mouth opens to say it again, to yell it: _Run_!

As his lips part, there’s a final blast. The girl falls and hits the snow and doesn’t get up.

There’s more to the memory, Bucky knows- his father taking a step into the snow before the loyalists come too late to save the Romanovs, and Bucky’s father drags him away lest they get shot themselves.

But in the dream, this doesn’t happen. In the dream, Bucky’s father is still and quiet as his son steps out into the snow. Bucky doesn’t look back as he walks, following the footsteps. The hand that held Anastasia’s is very warm.

When he reaches the body, her chest is still and eyes are mostly closed. Her hair is splayed out in a halo around her head, but then Bucky realizes it’s blood and brains. The back of her head has been blown away.

He stands there for a long time as he remembers sneaking out from the kitchens to see her a year ago. She had been talking to her uncle Fury and fiddling with a locket around her neck. She had been laughing. He can remember the sound of it.

As he remembers her laugh, he wakes up.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Bucky’s eyes open to the sight of a plain, dirty ceiling. It’s the same ceiling he’s looked up at upon waking for fifteen years, ever since he settled in St. Petersburg. Or, _Leningrad-_ which is a name Bucky does use, but grudgingly.

He reaches up to his face and touches the scar that sits high on his forehead. It’s been more than fifteen years, but waking up from that dream makes it feel like Anastasia has just slashed him with that shard of vase glass. He presses his hand over the scar until the phantom-pain bleeds away, then he lets his hair fall over it. Then he waits for the adrenaline to finish working its way out of his system. He never fails to wake up from that dream unsettled and shaky; the dead body he never saw imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

A knock on the door makes him jolt. His throat works until he has enough moisture in his mouth to say, “Yeah?”

“’S me,” comes Steve’s voice. “We’re late.”

Bucky huffs a laugh as he slings his legs over the side of the bed, sets his feet on the floor. “We ain’t exactly on a schedule here.”

“Best selling time of the day’s coming up.”

Bucky grunts in response as he gets dressed in the same clothes he’s been wearing for a week. He presses his nose to the shoulder of his shirt as he pulls on his boots. A sniff doesn’t have him wrinkling his nose, so he should be able to get away with at least a few more days before giving it a wash.

As he leaves, Bucky picks up the bag of stolen crap they’re going to sell to the good people of St. Petersburg.

Steve is leaning on the railing of the steps when Bucky opens the door, a fold-up table between his arm and his side. Steve nods in greeting, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. His skinny frame is bundled up in as many clothes as he can handle.

Bucky eyes the frayed fabric of Steve’s gloves. The snow had stopped last night, but there’s still a layer of it on everything. The people in St. Petersburg are cold, no one has enough money for good heating or thick clothing, but Steve gets sick easier than most. Keeping him warm is less about comfort and more about ensuring his continued existence.

They walk in comfortable silence the several blocks to their usual spot, then start to set up. It doesn’t take long- fold out the table, set their goods on top of it, and then stand back and start calling out to the public.

It’s the usual stuff, convincing people they need the crap they’re selling- they’re still coasting off their recent haul of the palace, which has been mostly picked clean for over a decade. Still, Steve and Bucky had managed to find a few nick-nacks when they’d last turned it over.

Around midday, Steve starts to cough in the middle of his usual spiel of ‘priceless artefacts at reasonable prices,’ and Bucky has him sit down and breathe deep. He stays like that for most of the rest of the day, until the sun starts going down and they start to pack up, having only sold a handkerchief (“-genuine Romanov! Stitched with Nikolas’ initials, you can’t beat this price-”).

“Sorry,” Steve says as they head through the streets towards the palace.

Bucky leans sideways and knocks their shoulders together. “Forget about it. Nobody was biting today, anyway.”

Steve nods, eyes downcast, kicking at the snow as they walk. Bucky watches him- it weighs on Steve more than Bucky, the stealing and pulling their usual shady crap. After their remaining parents had died- Steve’s mother from a stray gunshot in a riot, Bucky’s father from so-called ‘grief’- they started out stealing to eat, then stealing to sell things, and by the time they were sixteen they had been orchestrating low-level cons.

Now, nearing the tail-end of their twenties, they’re headed to their latest and most elaborate con yet- they’re searching for a girl to play the role of Anastasia, their very own lost princess. If they fail, they’re set up to get shot. But if they succeed, if they convince the Count Fury that it’s _his_ very own lost princess, they’d be rewarded with riches beyond belief.

All they have to do is find the girl to play the part.

“Oh-”

A woman bumps into Bucky hard enough that she stumbles, and Bucky reaches out to steady her with his good arm.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, hunched and covered in dirty shawls, eyes downcast. Her face is hidden behind a hood.

“It’s fine, comrade,” he assures her. He squeezes her arm, then drops his hand.

He can see enough of her face to catch the smile of thanks, and then she continues walking. Bucky turns slightly to watch her leave.

Without taking his eyes from her retreating back, he says, “Hey, do we know her from somewhere?”

Steve considers. “I don’t think so. Why, she sound familiar?”

“Yeah, kinda. I-” Halfway through turning to him, Bucky freezes. He’d gone to put his good hand in his coat pockets and instead of brushing the corner of his wallet, his fingers touched bare fabric. He shoves his hand deeper into it, groping, but his pocket is empty.

He whirls around to face the woman again, who is now walking fast down the street. “HEY! STOP!”

The woman doesn’t look behind her, but she does start to run.

Steve says, “What-”

“Son of a whore stole my wallet,” Bucky spits out as he breaks into a sprint. Steve catches up at his side before starting to lag behind. In another situation Bucky would slow down, but his damn wallet is at stake.

He tears around the corner she had turned around, almost slipping on a patch of ice, and spots her halfway down the street running almost as fast as him. Bucky shouts again, but the woman doesn’t even glance over her shoulder.

Bucky grits his teeth and runs faster. There’s another corner, and Bucky nearly loses her in the mill of people which is rapidly becoming a crowd. He stops running and turns around, craning his neck to see over everyone’s heads. Where-?

He spots a familiar crop of shawls and pushes through the crowd towards it. She isn’t running now, just walking and trying to blend in with the crowd.

The first thing Bucky does after catching up with her is grab her wrist. “Gotcha. Now, I think you have something of-”

She twists out of his grip like it’s nothing, then uses that momentum to slam her palm right into his chin, jolting his head backwards. For a moment Bucky is too surprised to do anything, but then she starts ducking in between the crowd, getting away again, and Bucky follows.

This time he only catches up to her because the crowd is blocking her path- she is trying to run now, but she can’t. He reaches for her again, but she whirls around and decks him in the cheek. It’s hard enough to send him stumbling, and Bucky knocks into a good few people before he rights himself.

“Je- _sus_ ,” he slurs, dazed. He lurches his way back to her. “Hey, come ON-”

He grabs her hood and wrenches it back, then pauses. She’s- well, beautiful, but that’s not it. There’s something eerily striking about her: green eyes, tangled red hair, smooth skin streaked in dirt.

She bares her teeth at him. “Finder’s keepers.”

“Uh.” Bucky shakes his head. Not the time to get distracted by a pretty face. “Not how this works, sweetheart. Give it back.”

Her gaze darts around. He supposes she’s considering if it’s worth it trying to beat him up in the middle of a crowd. His odds aren’t good- she can’t exactly run away, not unless she beats him hard enough that he either can’t get up or lets her go.

Before she can decide, Bucky lets her go and holds up his hands. “Look, I don’t want this to turn into a fight.”

“It wouldn’t be much of a fight,” she says after a moment.

He eyes her. “I’ve seen you around here, huh?”

She pushes her hair behind her ears. “You might have. You sell nick-nacks, yes? Romanov knockoffs.”

“Hey, those are the real deal.”

She raises an eyebrow and Bucky has a flash of wanting to just let her have the damn wallet.

“That’s what everyone claims,” she says, then she straightens.

Bucky snaps his fingers. “You were in that balcony café last month. Sitting with some official fella, looking a lot flashier than you do right now. What happened, he kick you out?”

Her mouth twitches. Bucky tries again: “Or is it more complicated? Are you in the conning business?” If she is, he can’t _not_ ask her to be their Anastasia. The more he looks at her, the more he sees features that he can pass off as genuine Romanov. He’s been having auditions for girls for a week now, but he hasn’t seen anyone who looks more like-

She brings up her knee and gets him right in the balls.

Christ. Bucky can only grunt, sinking to his knees on the cobblestones, the snow that’s dark from so many dirty boots. He watches helplessly as the woman pushes her way through the crowd and disappears.

“Fucking shitstain,” he chokes out when he can form words. “Piece of shit-” he trails off into a groan. His head drifts sideways until it lies on the ground. The muddy slush dampens his hair.

He closes his eyes and listens to everyone walking around him. One asshole even steps _over_ him, but he doesn’t blame them. Everyone has to watch out for themselves. Sometimes it’s better not to ask why someone is lying on the ground clutching their groin in their hands.

 _Is this the country you fought for, father,_ Bucky thinks as he lies on the cobblestones. He’s mad at the girl, sure, but he _understands_. He’s been in the same situation more than twice. There’s not a citizen in St. Petersburg who wouldn’t at least sympathise with a pickpocket who filched their money, even when they’re still fuming over the loss. They live in a country where almost nobody can get by without dipping into the illegal side of things.

“Jesus. You alright, Buck?”

Bucky cracks his eyes open. Steve stands over him, eyebrows drawn in together.

“’M _great_ ,” Bucky says. He groans again as Steve helps him up. He has to stand bent over, hands on his knees, wincing to himself. “She kicked me in the fucking balls. _And_ she decked me in the face.”

He reaches up to press against the tender skin of his cheek. Yeah, that one’s going to bruise. He bends down gingerly and picks up a handful of dirty snow, pressing it to his cheek.

“Shitstain,” he says again.

Steve is still looking over him in concern. Then he sighs. “Come on. We should get to auditions.”

Bucky laughs. “Hey, you know what? That girl, when I pulled off her hood- she was a dead ringer for her.”

“What?”

“Anastasia.” Bucky tries to take a careful step and finds he can do it without falling over. He drops the handful of snow and wipes his hand on the dry side of his shirt. “Looked just like she would’ve looked now if she wasn’t, y’know, dead.”

“Supposedly dead,” Steve says, like he always does. Lately he’s been trying to make himself feel better with the idea that they could find the real Anastasia and deliver her to her last remaining family. Like life is some goddamn fairytale. Then again, Steve does have something of a fairytale in his life, in the form of Tony Stark.

Bucky doesn’t respond. He’s never told anyone about his father, about Bucky being there when the Imperials were murdered. He’s never told anyone, not even Steve, about watching Anastasia run, then fall.

The remembered gunshot makes Bucky’s throat click. He’s heard guns go off many times since then, but they’ve never been so loud to him- that last shot had taken over the world.

“Buck?”

“What?” Bucky looks over and sees Steve looking at him like he’s been talking to Bucky for a while without him noticing. “Sorry.”

Steve eyes him for a moment, but doesn’t ask.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Bucky wakes up with the phantom sound of a laugh still ringing in his ears; a body in the snow on the back of his eyelids.

He slows his breathing to something manageable, then gets out of bed. Today there will be no stall, no convincing passerby that they really do need this teapot and yes, it really did belong to the Romanov family before their untimely demise. Today is haul day, which this week means they’re heading to the palace in the hope that they’ll find something worth selling.

Bucky meets up with Steve down the bottom of the steps of their apartment building and they start towards the palace.

“We gotta get new boots,” Bucky says as he feels snow seep into his left shoe.

“When don’t we need new boots,” Steve says, in the tone of voice that means he’s mentally tallying what they need to buy with what money they have. “Your balls still twinging?”

Bucky laughs. “Nah.”

“Cheek?”

Bucky makes a face and feels the bruised skin of his cheek pull uncomfortably. “Oh, yeah.”

“Damn.”

Bucky watches the sharp, hunched lines of Steve’s shoulders, the dull cadence of his voice. He’s been low ever since Tony went back to Paris eight months ago. Sometimes Bucky thinks the only reason Steve agreed to the Anastasia con is so he can have an excuse to see Tony.

It’s an odd match- a famous inventor and a nobody who fences stolen goods for a living. Bucky definitely hadn’t seen it coming until he walked in on them kissing over a game of chess. For a second he’d thought the two had just come up with a new fighting method- the two arguing almost every second they were together, at the start, before it gave way to fondness.

Tony Stark had appeared suddenly in their lives five years ago, just after Bucky had his damn arm torn off in factory accident. He’d fitted Bucky with a new- and completely free, since it had been experimental- fake arm, and then he’d stuck around. He’d said it was about business opportunities, but later Bucky realized it was because of Steve, who Tony always made excuses to come and see.

Out of everyone, Steve had been the most surprised about it. At first he would vent to Bucky about how Stark would make fun of him by pretending to flirt with him. It’d taken the poor guy months to convince Steve that no, he wasn’t doing this for fun, he actually wanted to take Steve out on the town. Discreetly, of course- everyone in Russia is equal now, but some are still more equal than others and certain activities are still liable to get you shot.

Bucky clears his throat. “Has Tony wrote you recently?”

“Huh?” Steve registers the question and a reluctant smile blooms on his face. “Got one of his letters just last week.”

“He doing okay?”

“You know him.” Steve rolls his eyes. “He’s _always_ okay.”

“Yeah, I know no one like that,” Bucky says dryly.

Steve steps on his foot and Bucky kicks him gently in the shin.

“He promised to visit,” Bucky points out when Steve’s smile sloughs back into the usual mopey expression that’s been on his face for months. “He’ll show up soon.”

“Yeah.” Steve scratches the side of his face in the way that means he’s just doing it for something to distract his hands. “He’s real busy, but he’s hoping that he can come for a visit before next year.”

Bucky hums, long and loud, and Steve gives him the stink-eye.

“I’m not being his kept boy, Buck.”

“I’m just saying,” Bucky starts, “giving up a little bit of that pride would make it so you aren’t struggling to eat every damn day-”

They bicker about it all the way to the palace, even as they’re breaking in, though they do drop to whispers during that. There’s no one around- there never is, nowadays- but it’s habit. This is one of the things they do that can get them killed. Really, far too much of what they do can get them killed. It’s the main reason Bucky is trying to get them both out of Russia. It’d be nice to live without the constant worry of getting lined up and shot.

They head into the bedrooms this time, which have been mostly ransacked. Bucky goes through the young son’s room and tries very hard not to remember the boy’s corpse. He had only gotten a few seconds of staring in at the cellar before his father had noticed and dragged him upstairs, but he’d managed to make out a few of the faces. This boy, he remembers, had bullet holes in him as well as wounds that Bucky later found out were from bayonets.

 _We really botched it,_ Bucky’s father had told him once. It was one of the only times he’d talked about it. _It should have been quick- painless, if we could make it so. Instead…_

He’d trailed off after that. It had been six weeks before Bucky would come home and find him cold and still on the living room carpet.

Bucky shudders and then forces himself to still. He goes through the boy’s drawers and leaves in a hurry.

“Anything good,” he calls to Steve, who is in the parents’ room.

A pause, then: “Not much.”

“Keep looking,” Bucky tells him. He heads into the nearest room. Like the rest of them, it’s dusty and picked bare. The wallpaper is ripped and the mattress is missing. Bucky bends down next to the bed to see if there’s anything under the frame, something people missed, and then pauses.

On one of the bed’s legs, there’s a small carving. It’s got curves that hint at cursive, but there’s only so much you can do with wood. It reads _A.N.R_

Bucky swallows. _Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov_.

He raises his head and looks around. This room was hers, once. She had bent down, sitting just like he is now, and her hands had held something- a dinner knife, maybe, or a hairpin- and carved her initials into the wood.

Bucky stands and heads over to the window. It’s small and the lock is stiff, and Bucky has to shove at it with the heel of his hand. Once he gets it open he throws the window open and sticks his head out to take several big, gulping breaths.

He closes his eyes. In his memory, her hand is hot in his. Her eyes are bright and wide as she stares at him.

_Run. They’re coming for you, you have to go-_

“Are you James Barnes?”

 Bucky startles. His head bangs on the top of the window and he swears.

“Depends who’s looking,” he says, rubbing at his head. He turns around, mouth open to ask who she is, but then he sees who it is and his mouth stays open wordlessly.

She’s cleaned up since yesterday, but she’s still nowhere near what she looked like in that café, lipsticked and lovely, all luxurious clothing and tinkling laugh. Still, she isn’t wearing all the shawls. Her clothes are plain, but clean, and her face is hidden by nothing.

Said face twitches as she registers him. “Ah.”

“Yeah,” he says, and feels his mouth curl into a smile. “Coming for a second round?”

“Maybe later,” she says. “Are you James Barnes or not?”

He runs his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Dunno where the hell you got my real name, but people around here call me Bucky. Why do you want to know?”

She raises her chin. “I need exit papers.”

“You and everybody else.” He looks over her, trying not to stare. She would be _perfect_ as-

There’s a stab of guilt as he remembers that they’re in her room. They’re standing in her room, and the woman standing in the doorway is not the girl who once carved her initials into the wood of the bed- that girl died in the snow a long time ago.

“I heard you provide that kind of service,” the woman tells him. Her gaze slides sideways to the bruise on his cheek. “I’m sorry for hurting you yesterday,” she says, and it actually sounds sincere, though she doubts the sincerity is real. Chances are she’s just a good actor.

Bucky thinks about asking for his wallet back, but decides against it. This opportunity is too good to pass up. “Where are you headed to?”

“Hopefully, out of the motherland.”

“And after that?”

She pauses. “Paris.”

Oh, this is fucking wonderful. Bucky doesn’t let the excitement show in his face. “Why Paris?”

“I- might have an acquaintance there.”

“Might have?”

“Yes.”

 _Okay. Breathe. Don’t blow this._ “What a coincidence,” he says. He tries for casual, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall. “We’re headed for Paris, too.”

She nods. “I heard.”

“You did?” He wets his lips. “Hear anything else about why we’re headed there?”

“Perhaps.”

That means yes. No point holding back now. “Would you be willing to get in on it? Be our Anastasia?”

She purses her lips. “I think not.”

 _Shit. Come on._ “Well,” Bucky says. “If you want your papers-”

“I’m sure we can arrange something else,” the woman says, pulling up a smile. Her face is fucking unreadable, just like the rest of her, but she’s obviously going for charming.

Bucky tries again. “The con shouldn’t be too hard, an accomplished woman like yourself. And the reward is worth the trials.”

“I know.”

“So, what’s the rub? We’ll teach you what to say, you just have to perform. Something tells me you’re good at that. Afterwards, you can do whatever you-”

She cuts him off. “You won’t give me the papers otherwise?”

Bucky stops. Part of him really wants to say _exactly, come with us, be our Anastasia, you’re the spitting image and you do this for a living, you’re perfect_.

But he relents. “Maybe. But you’d be a fool to turn this opportunity down, with everything it offers.”

“Mmm.” Her fingers tap on the side of her thigh, then still. It’s the first thing he’s seen that comes close to giving something away. She’s nervous.

Bucky sighs and steps closer before he realizes he’s doing it. “You look so much like her. You could- you could adopt a personality that-”

“No, I know I could do it. It would be easy enough,” she says, sounding like she’s considering it. “It’s not that.”

“What, then?” Bucky steps closer, until she has to look up to meet his eyes. “Think of it. Riches beyond belief. Being _royalty_ , if you decide to stay after the con finishes.”

She tips her head. “Riches, I’d like. Royalty- royalty sounds like a cage, if a gilded one. But-”

A muscle flutters in her jaw. Bucky watches the tiny movement under her skin. Her eyes track his face: she’s considering her options.

Finally she gives a curt nod. “If it will get me to Paris- or just out of Russia, even- I accept.”

“ _Great_.” Bucky grins and then tries to tamp it down. “You won’t regret this. We’ll give you- princess lessons, I guess we can call them. Then when we think you’re ready-”

“Buck?”

Bucky looks up and the woman turns around to see Steve emerging into the hallway. He pauses, eyebrows raising when he sees the woman, then raising further when he takes in what she looks like.

“Oh,” Steve says. “Oh, jeez.” He looks at Bucky. “Is she-?”

“Our very own Anastasia,” Bucky says.

Steve blows out a breath. “You said it. I’d believe it just looking at her.” He walks up and holds out his hand. “Hi, I’m Steve Rogers.”

“James’ partner,” the woman nods. “I’ve heard of you. I’m Natasha.”

She takes Steve’s hand and Bucky realizes that no, she hadn’t introduced herself. Huh.

“Or Anastasia, I suppose,” she says with a smile that looks convincing enough, but Bucky has had to read people for long enough that he can spot something unsure behind it. “For now, at least.”

“For now,” Bucky agrees. Plans are already whirling in his head; plans he hadn’t thought would become solid for a few more months of girl-searching. To think of it- the perfect girl turning up asking for exit papers to the exact place they’re going for the con. It feels like fate, almost.

His smile fades slightly as he remembers they’re still standing in the bedroom. “Uh, excuse me-”

He squeezes beside Natasha to get into the hallway. When she pins him with a questioning look, he waves a hand. “Sorry, just- it felt disrespectful, arranging all of this in her old room.”

Surprise and understanding dawns on Natasha’s face. She turns around in the doorway and looks around the skeleton of the bedroom. Her hand goes to touch the thin chain of a necklace, which disappears into her coat.

 “This was hers?”

“Used to be,” Bucky says. He watches her face- it’s undisguised, if only for a second. He expects interest, maybe reverence, or even disgust if she’s one of the loyalists who consider the Romanovs to be pigs who deserved what they got- but what he gets is a flash of something like fear.

Bucky frowns. Natasha looks like he does, sometimes, right after he wakes up from the dream that only happens when there’s snow outside. But then it’s hastily rearranged back into a mild smile, and then Natasha’s stepping into the hall with Bucky and Steve.

“Well,” she says, standing in front of them. She shakes her hair over her shoulders and for a moment Bucky could believe the fiction they’re going to weave around her. “Shall we get started?”

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Natasha has done a lot of things to prepare for cons. She’s learned languages, crafted new personalities and worn them at will, researched family lines and dug into the sordid secrets of too many people to count.

Princess training- as James fondly calls it- is not the hardest work she’s done for a con. It’s actually quite pleasant, once they get the long family lines out of the way.

On the second week Natasha asks, “We’re still going at this from the amnesiac angle, yes?”

She had suggested early on that a reason Anastasia hadn’t contacted her last remaining family was that until recently, she couldn’t remember she was Anastasia at all. It’s simple enough- it’s a good explanation to why she hasn’t contacted Fury before, and if it’s a backstory that falls too close to home for Natasha, she hasn’t mentioned this to the boys.

“Yeah,” James says distractedly from where he’s rubbing the chalkboard with his sleeve. It’s his turn today- he and Steve take alternating days, with one of them selling crap on the street and the other teaching Natasha. Steve sticks to French, mostly, and some history. James focuses on the tiny intricacies: posture, tics, embarrassing family stories. When Natasha, early on, had asked how James knows this, he had faced the chalkboard for a long second before moving on with the lesson and leaving the question unanswered.

For now, Natasha will let it lie.

She watches the white lines connecting the Romanovs smear and vanish under his touch. “It shouldn’t matter if I miss a few details, then. I might even want to, depending on the detail.” She pauses. It’s probably better to be safe- learn everything, then pretend not to know something if it becomes useful to do so.

She watches James consider it. One thing Natasha has liked about the boys from the start: they treat her like an equal. She figures it’s only partly because she beat the crap out of James once, and partly because she hasn’t tamped down on how capable she is. It’s oddly freeing: she usually spends her life dumbing herself down, turning herself wide-eyed and adoring. It’s not the only personality she can pull on, but it’s the one she ends up using the most.

James starts scribbling on the chalkboard again. “Good thinking,” he says.

Natasha purses her lips against a smile. He still hasn’t asked for his wallet back.

When they sit down for lunch, he offers her half of his sandwich.

She takes it. “Butter again?”

“You know it,” he says around a mouthful.

Natasha considers what would be the best response. James has proven favourable to sarcasm in the past, which is oddly delightful for her. “My favourite.”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, I stay awake at night looking forward to these,” he says, and then he takes a large bite, complete with enthused noises.

She laughs. It’s not a fake one, which means it’s barely more than a snort.

Quiet or not, he seems pleased by it. He meets her eyes briefly before taking another bite, then looks out towards the windows of the palace, in between the boards that keep out the wind. The windows haven’t had glass in them ever since they were smashed in during the revolution.

She looks around the ballroom, which is empty apart from their makeshift classroom, which consists of a couple of crates they’re using for seats; a blackboard and a bag full of books that changes depending on who’s teaching today.

Anastasia had danced in this room, once. Natasha shifts her feet against the floor, presses her heels against the crate she’s sitting on. Sometimes when she’s in the ballroom she’ll get the shivers thinking about the Romanovs dancing, taking turns spinning each other around. For some reason she always pictures Anastasia running at her father; him lifting her up, her mouth falling open in laughter: _Higher-!_

Natasha squeezes her eyes shut and busies herself with the sandwich, then the lunch she had brought: a handful of dried fruit, which she shared with James.

He thanks her and they sit in silence that could almost be called comfortable, if Natasha was in the habit of being comfortable with people.

“Alright,” James says after a few minutes. He claps his hands on his knees and Natasha very determinedly doesn’t wince, because she’s long since trained the panic out of her that surges at any sound that resembles a gunshot.

“Back to the lesson,” James continues, and gets up. Then, like an afterthought, he turns around and bows to Natasha, offering a hand and putting the other one behind his back as if he’s standing in front of a duchess. “My lady?”

“Your highness,” she corrects him, and takes his hand. It’s very warm.

His fingers falter around hers for a moment, but then his face falls into a grin. “My apologies, your _highness_.”

She stands. He drops her hand. Natasha watches him turn towards the blackboard and flexes her hand at her side, something unnameable scratching at the back of her mind.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

( _Her dream is always changing: snow that stretches out forever, her breath coming fast as she runs, something catching on her foot and she falls alongside a sound that must be a gunshot._

_Sometimes she runs from the gunshots for a long time and never falls, just runs, and the gunshots keep coming. Sometimes there will be dark, and in the dark there will be muffled screams that are always so familiar in the dream but unrecognizable upon waking._

_Very rarely, maybe once or twice a year, she will be in the dark and then the dark will fall away and there will be a boy’s voice, but she can never make out what he says._

_Then she will wake up_.)

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

When James asks about her parents, Natasha thinks about dodging the question.

“I lost them in the revolution,” she says eventually. It’s true enough.

James’s faces goes understanding. “I’m sorry.”

“You, too?”

“Yeah.” He rubs his hands against his pockets. “Uh, my dad a bit afterwards. But still.”

“Still,” she echoes.

His gaze goes distant and she wonders what else he lost. The same as everyone else, she supposes- everything, or most of it: crucial pieces that left them grasping at what they had left.

She swallows. “How did it happen?”

He blows out a breath that turns into a laugh halfway through. It’s not a joyful laugh.

“Sorry,” she tries, but he’s already waving her away.

“No, it’s fine. I just- I don’t talk about that part of my life.”

Natasha wonders if she would, if she could remember it. She only remembers the end of the revolution. What must it have been like in the middle of it?

“Me neither,” she offers.

He cracks a smile. At first she thinks he’s going to ask her about her own parents, how did they die, and she will have to come up with something or avoid the subject. But then James just reaches up and rubs at a scar she’s only seen once or twice, a scar that stays hidden behind his hair- and turns back to the chalkboard.

“So,” he starts. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

When she goes over the distasteful habits of the inner family flawlessly he doesn’t look too impressed, but she supposes that’s because he’s gotten used to it after weeks of the same thing.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Natasha learns French in a surprisingly short amount of time, which is less surprising to Natasha than she’d like it to be. French tastes familiar in her mouth, just like English had when she learned it for a con two years previously.

“You’re a natural,” Steve tells her one day, about five weeks into princess training.

She smiles obligingly and doesn’t tell him that probably isn’t it.

As the lesson gets sidetracked- as they often do, nowadays, even if they always jolt back on track after ten minutes or so- Natasha asks Steve about his background. How does he know French?

Steve’s smile instantly goes fond, and this is how she finds out about Tony. Tony _Stark,_ no less, who apparently comes around to his motherland every so often before retreating back to Paris. Tony Stark, who made and maintained James’s arm free of charge, who wooed Steve but could never convince him to run away with him or even live with him as his kept man.

Natasha almost calls him an idiot for turning that down, but she keeps it behind her teeth. She respects Steve, and by now she’s figured him out enough to see the extent of his quiet, bold pride.

“What’s he like,” Natasha asks.

Steve’s eyes get that soft look again. “He’s… the brightest man I’ve ever known.”

“I’m guessing you’re not just talking about his brains?”

“No.” Steve smiles. “He shines, would be the best way of putting it. You’d understand if you met him.”

“When,” she says.

“When,” he agrees.  Tony is, after all, the man they’re headed towards in Paris, who will get them to Fury.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

“Why Paris?”

Natasha pauses in mid-bend. James had been guiding her in the correct way to curtsey.

She straightens and cranes her neck right and left until her muscles pop. “I told you.”

“You said you _might_ have an _acquaintance_ there.” He leans hard on the words. It’s obviously a question.

Her hand lifts to her necklace. A fingernail traces the minute lettering that runs around the edges: _together in paris_. It’s a pipe dream. It was a comfort, at the start: _someone must have loved me_ , she had thought when she was a child. _I should try to find them._

She once dreamed of a family coming to find her, who would take her away from the cold and feed her and be worthwhile of her trust. They wouldn’t screw her over for her share of the cash or leave her for dead because it was too much trouble to dig her out of a caved-in tunnel.

She had started saving money to get to Paris for the first ten years after getting out of the hospital she had woken up in with no memories, but life kept happening. Eventually Paris had turned into a fantasy Natasha thought distantly about, but at the end of the day she focused on the upcoming con and tried to get enough food to survive. After all- the necklace might have been an inside joke. Whoever had given it to her might not have loved her, or maybe they did and they lived in Russia, or maybe they were dead or somewhere other than Paris. Even if they were in Paris and they did love her, there was no guarantee she would find them.

Natasha isn’t sure what possessed her to try to get to Paris again. She wants to get out of Russia, mainly, and Paris seems a good of place as any.

And if she finds the person who gave her the necklace, then- well. That would be one mystery solved.

“I don’t remember much about them,” is what Natasha says. “They might not be there anymore.”

James makes a sympathetic noise. “Family?”

“Of a sort.”

He nods. He keeps looking at her like he wants to unravel her, and Natasha is sorely tempted to let him- but she’s too world-weary to be anything other than careful, so she bends into a curtsey again and looks up at him.

“How was that?”

He seems to snap out of a daze. “What? Good.”

She ducks her head so he doesn’t see her smile. Damn him for being so likeable.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

As the lessons continue, James doesn’t stop prying. Or, _prying_ perhaps isn’t the best word- they talk and things about the both of them are slowly revealed, and it isn’t entirely unwelcome. It’s actually surprisingly, probably dangerously welcome, to the point that Natasha regularly has to stop herself from letting her laugh get loose; from telling James more than she should. She controls what he knows about her, but on occasion she’ll find herself letting more slip than would be wise.

James, damn him, makes it easy. Despite his criminal status, he’s trustworthy- if Natasha was the kind of girl who trusted people.

Natasha has been in cons that have lasted twice the length of this. Or the estimated length, anyway, they’re hoping to get out of Russia before another month is up- and her fellow conmen in those jobs had been fine with keeping it professional. But James, and by extension Steve, both seem to be the kind of guys who want to get to know the person they’ve entered into a con with.

Natasha is cautiously navigating this new friendship, with surprising results. She tries not to spend an extended amount of time without putting some emotional distance between herself and them, but this proves to be harder than expected with these two, in different ways.

Steve is earnest, not stupidly so, but it’s still enough to take her off guard. He’s polite except when he isn’t, which are rare moments that can make her laugh loud enough that it echoes around the empty ballroom.

And James- well. James is another case, an unexpected problem, because Natasha doesn’t get close to her temporary partners in crime, she uses them as a means to an end and they do the same to her. This is how it’s been since she got into the con business eight years ago in her mid teens, and she’s nervous about how much these men- especially this one man- shakes her status quo. He’s charming and witty and traumatized, the kind of trauma that Natasha is intimately familiar with.

Sometimes she’ll gets glimpses of things that make her want to pick him apart, not to dismantle him or toy with him, but to _see_. She’ll catch him off guard and make him stutter or, amazingly, blush, and then he’ll tell her to wipe the grin off her face and she’ll realize she’s grinning without meaning to.

It isn’t often that Natasha wants to _know_ someone this badly. James- James makes her feel something she doesn’t allow herself to feel. He’ll shoot her a look after she spins a dry joke and his gaze will make her stomach jolt. She’ll sternly think to herself _this is not allowed_ , but in the moment it will get overshadowed by the jolt.

In a conversation like much of their conversations, James sits next to her- on the floor, Steve has borrowed the crate for the day to sit on at the stall- and she sits next to him on the floor instead of the crate, leaning back against it. They share their lunch like good Russian comrades, everyone gets equal, and they joke sourly about it.

As he’s munching on his half of apple, James says, “You’ve been tired these past few days.”

Natasha pauses in mid-bite, then continues chewing her half. Trying for casual, she says, “Are you implying I look worse than usual?”

“Oh, _never_ , your highness.” James grins. “Just thought I’d check if something had happened.”

“I’m fine.” Natasha picks at the remaining skin on her apple, turns it over in her hands. Her bite mark is very neat. Then, for reasons that are feeling increasingly dangerous: “I don’t sleep well, sometimes.”

James hums. He cranes his head back to look at the domed ceiling. “Me, neither. Sometimes.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah.” He leans back on his hands. “It’s the snow. Brings back bad memories.”

Natasha presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Bad memories. Yes.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

( _There is a boy in the doorway and he’s staring down at her. His mouth is open and his eyes are wide and- brown? Blue? Natasha can never get a good look. He’s blocking the light. She doesn’t remember much about him except that he says something to her, not when he’s in the doorway- not that doorway, anyway, she thinks there was another doorway after that- but whenever his mouth moves the words smear into nonsense. What is he saying? He takes her hand. That, she knows. He takes her hand and says-)_

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

“You seem really worried about this.”

Natasha looks up at him from her crate. She had been trying to take in the inside jokes Anastasia had with her little brother, but for some reason she had to concentrate on stopping her hands from shaking.

“It can be a lot to take in all at once,” she says.

James shakes his head. “No, not that- you’re confident when it comes to princess lessons. And you should be- you know you can do this, we know you can do this. Just seems like you don’t want to.”

Natasha looks into his face. Then she looks over at Steve, who is sitting on the crate opposite hers- it’s a rare day when the snow is so thick they don’t bother with putting up their stall. They’ve been huddled in the castle for four hours now.

She could trust them, is the thing. She certainly _wants_ to- if she had met them maybe eight, even five years ago, maybe she would have. But she has gone too long and experienced too much to put her faith in anyone other than her.

Still, the words burn at the back of her throat. Surely, she thinks, it wouldn’t cause too much damage. It could even lend credence to their con. It could _help_.

 _Do I want it to help,_ Natasha thinks. There is a part of her that wants to stay a safe distance away from this, to say to hell with Paris, she doesn’t need anyone anyway- she has worn her only clue that someone loved her around her neck since before she could remember, _together in paris_ , but she has been fine on her own for so long.

When someone speaks, it takes a second to recognize her own voice. “I did lose my parents in the revolution, but only because I lost everything in the revolution. I-”

She stops. Her throat works. She can feel both the boys’ gaze on her, quiet and waiting.

She tries again. “The first solid thing I remember is walking through the snow with a concussion. I don’t know where I was walking from, I just knew I needed to keep walking. And I did.”

James shifts from foot to foot. “Wait, is this- I thought you just suggested this for the con, it wasn’t-”

“I might’ve pulled a bit from real life.” Natasha forces a smile. “The best lies have truth in them, yes?”

James doesn’t reply.

Natasha continues, “I walked until I found a city and then I was found at the side of the road, unconscious. I had very little memories. Flashes of- unimportant things, chairs and food and views from windows.”

The boys are still staring at her.

Natasha takes a bracing breath. “I don’t- I don’t know my name. I picked my name at the hospital I woke up in.”

“When did this happen?” James’s face, when she looks up at it, is unreadable, but unreadable in the kind of way that means he’s on the verge of something.

“The same week the Romanovs were killed.”

Beside her, Steve lets out a noise like a wheeze. James is still staring at her, unblinking. There’s something dawning on his face that looks like disbelief, only more terrible.

“You think you could really be her,” Steve says, and he sounds just as disbelieving but his is tinged with wonder instead of whatever is congealing on James’s face. “Anastasia.”

“I think it’s a possibility,” Natasha allows.

Steve lets out a laugh. “Well- that would be great! After we get out of Russia, obviously.”

She looks over at him. “Would it? Anastasia’s entire family is long dead. She has no one but an uncle. I wouldn’t want to be her.”

James starts nodding. She doesn’t think he knows he’s doing it. “Yeah,” is what he finally comes out with. “Uh. You don’t- you don’t need to worry, Tasha, alright? She’s dead. She’s definitely dead.”

Natasha keeps her face impassive. “You seem very sure of that,” she says. It’s something itching at the back of her head- James is so certain about so many parts of being royal, he knows far too much about the Romanovs and their personal habits, their lives-

“She’s dead,” James says, hoarse. He won’t meet her eyes.

Steve says, “We don’t know that,” and James looks his way- not right at him, just in his direction, like he’s afraid what his eyes will reveal if he looks at Steve directly- and makes a noise both dubious and bitter.

Steve’s gaze turns almost suspicious. “Buck.”

James clears his throat. “She’s long gone, okay? Trust me. You don’t have anything to worry about. The fake Anastasia we’re gonna turn you into, that’s the realest version of her the world will get.”

Steve swallows, eyeing him, but he can’t look away from Natasha for long. “We’ll- we’ll see what happens. You can tell Tony all of what you just told us, when you meet him. And Fury, too. Maybe…”

He trails off. He keeps looking at Natasha like she’s going to reveal something more, and it gets to the point that Natasha has to look away, and when her gaze goes over James she finds he’s turned away. He’s not facing the chalkboard- instead he’s facing the front of the ballroom, where the throne, now shabby, remains.

“James?”

He jerks slightly at the sound of it. He turns, but only enough to make it clear he heard. “I’m gonna- I might head upstairs. See if there’s anything valuable to sell when this snow lets up.”

Natasha watches him go with dread growing in her chest. She had shared this story once with a nurse back at the hospital and no one else since then. As Natasha watches James walk away, shoulders stiff, like they’re being weighed down, she thinks she should have kept the words behind her teeth.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

_(Gold-trimmed, ornate chairs. The comforting taste of a stew that was better than anything Natasha has ever eaten. Views from windows- snow, yes, and a snowman, but also beaches that couldn’t belong to Russia. Architecture from other countries, a foreign coastline, a bridge- Natasha has been out of Russia before, in another life, she is sure of it.)_

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Two months into training, when the train tickets are being cautiously prepared, Natasha asks Steve the question that she’s ventured twice now to James and gotten brushed away each time. She would ask a third time, but she’s overly cautious about him now, at least when it comes to this.

“How does James know so much about the Romanov’s personal lives?”

Steve looks up from his apple. They’re sitting side by side on crates and the wind outside is creeping through the boarded-up windows.

“Oh, uh.”

“He won’t talk about it,” Natasha admits. “I assumed it was a painful topic.”

Steve hums against his apple. “His father was one of their guards,” he says after a few seconds.

Natasha’s throat restricts. “Yes?” It’s close to what she’s been suspecting. She had come up with more than a few theories.

“Mm.” Steve rubs at his mouth absently with his knuckles. “He brought Bucky along to the palace sometimes, to work in the kitchens. He spent some time with the Romanov kids, so he knows more than the general citizen.”

 _So he wouldn’t gun me down if I turn out to be Anastasia?_ It sticks to the roof of her mouth.

“His father was loyal to them, then,” she tries. She reaches up and touches the outline of her necklace through her shirt where it sits hidden, always.

Steve makes a face. “He was, once. I think. Uh, not so much in- in the end.” His voice lowers. “He brought them to Yekaterinburg. Bucky, too. They stayed in the house next to the one the Romanovs were in.”

Natasha takes a slow, measured breath and tries to keep her heart rate down. “Was- his father, was he one of the guards who-”

“I think so.” Steve keeps his gaze on the floor. “He never said it outright- Bucky or his father. They kept pretty quiet about everything when they got back home. I’ve asked him about it- Bucky- but he won’t-”

He stops and sighs. “But yeah, I think so.”

Natasha closes her eyes and thinks back to James’s haunted expression, his tight shoulders. He hadn’t looked her in the face for days after she’d told him about her past- rather, her lack of one.

“Well,” she says, eyes blinking open. Her voice comes out evenly. “That could make things awkward if I turn out to be Russia’s lost princess.”

Steve laughs, but it’s wooden and it stops before it could have been convincing.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

At the train station, Natasha has to stop herself from picking tiny pieces of paper off of the tickets, from worrying them in her hands, folding and unfolding them over and over until the creases form tears.

“Hey,” James says.

Natasha tries not to startle when he takes her hand with his good one.

He squeezes. “It’s gonna be fine, Tasha.”

She looks over at him, dubious, and gets another hand-squeeze in return.

He hasn’t changed much in terms of his interactions with her since she revealed her lack of past, but there have been tiny things she’s noticed from watching him closely: he strays away from touching her, sometimes. He watches her with an expression that falls close to fear, but it’s hastily covered up when he sees her noticing.

“And if not,” he continues, “getting shot is a hell of a lot faster than starving to death.”

It surprises a laugh out of her. “Very true.”

He doesn’t drop her hand and she doesn’t pull hers away. It feels oddly natural to stand in the middle of the train station, sidestepping passerby and holding onto each other.

James twists their joined hands to see his watch.

“Steve will be here,” Natasha says when he starts to frown.

“He’s cutting it goddamn close,” James says, but drags his gaze away from his watch to her face. “Hey. Something I wanted to ask, but it never came up.”

“Yes?”

“Why do you call me James? No-one’s called me that since I was-” He pauses, clears his throat. “It’s been a while, is all.”

She blinks at him. Why? He had been introduced to her as such, and _Bucky_ had sat wrong in her mouth the first time she had said it, so she’d gone back to _James_.

“It felt right,” she says.

Something flickers across his face.

She asks, “Does it bother you?”

James shakes his head. “It- feels right when you say it.”

“Oh,” she says, to cover the sudden lurch of her stomach. “Good.”

There’s a hidden momentum behind the interaction and she doesn’t want to identify why. She thinks about him calling her _Tasha_ ; how his mouth looks when he forms the word.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Steve arrives at the tail-end of boarding time, and James cuffs the back of his head as he drags him inside the train, which is starting to move.

“Okay,” Steve says when they’re safely inside. “That was cutting it too close.” He bends over, hands braced on his knees, and wheezes.

They wait for him to get enough of his breath back, then head into an empty compartment. The seats are peeling and Natasha picks at the seat coverings until flecks come off on her fingernails.

James’ eyes fall to her hand and for a moment Natasha thinks- hopes- he will pick up her hand again. But then James’ gaze goes towards the windows, watching the blurring landscape. Natasha follows suit: outside the window are the distant outline of familiar mountains. It reminds her of her long trek across Russia, working and stealing and conning, sleeping under bridges and waking up to see the dawn trail over a different set of mountains.

Once she had come across a waterfall, a great big thundering thing. She had been on the brink of freezing to death but she had stopped to stare at it anyway, the roar of water filling her ears until the answering growl of her stomach had forced her into moving.

James, in turn, looks as if he’s lost in his own memories.

 _Will you miss Russia?_ It’s on the tip of her tongue. She opens her mouth to ask-

“Excuse me, is this compartment full?”

She turns. It’s only her years of masking her emotions that gets her swallowing her gasp: it’s an officer, and his face is familiar- she had seen him in the streets of Petersburg twice, and on the first occasion he had shot a man in the street for reasons no one had stopped and asked.

The officer looks over them all, and his face is innocent enough except for the layer past it; the thing behind the polite blandness he’s projecting. It makes the back of Natasha’s neck prickle.

Her neck outright crawls when the officer’s face breaks into a smile that doesn’t look entirely natural. “Buck?”

Natasha turns to James in surprise. He’s staring at the officer in concealed panic, but he manages to pull up his own smile.

“Rumlow, hello- uh, come in, we have room.”

Rumlow is moving, closing the door before James has finished the sentence. He sits down on Steve’s line of seats so he’s facing Natasha and James.

When he smiles at her, Natasha forces herself to smile back. She’s sure now. This man- Rumlow- he’s here for her. You can get shot for spreading rumours about Anastasia surviving the murders in the cellar. A woman posing as a personification of that rumour must be eliminated.

She looks over at James, who is still concealing his panic. He’s doing it better now that he’s had a while to get used to the situation, and the knowing in his eyes when he meets her gaze is a small relief: James suspects Rumlow, just as she does. He knows they have to be careful.

 When James speaks, it could almost be casual. “I thought you were stationed in Petersburg for the next couple of years.”

“I was.” Rumlow stretches out, crossing his legs. “Something came up.”

“Yeah? Where’re you headed?”

“That depends on circumstances outside my control,” Rumlow says after a long moment. His smile turns into a grin. He leans forwards, eyes on Natasha. “Who’s this, then?”

James opens his mouth, but Natasha talks over him. “Natasha Romanoff,” she says, leaning in and offering a hand.

“Romanoff?”

“Yes.” Natasha smiles, trying to get it as non-threatening as possible: she shrinks into her shoulders and widens her eyes in an attempt to look naïve. Shit. She should’ve used a different name- this is the one she’s had since she woke up in the hospital.

Rumlow clicks his tongue, but reaches forwards and takes her hand. He doesn’t shake it- instead, he leans even further and kisses the back of her hand. Like one would for, say, a duchess.

Natasha keeps smiling. When Rumlow lets go of her hand, she puts it in her lap and very determinedly doesn’t make a fist.

Steve asks, “You two know each other?”

Rumlow hums, looking over at James. “Buck and I grew up near each other. Our dads were friends. How’s your old man doing?”

James clears his throat. “Ah, he passed.”

“Oh, what a shame.” Rumlow puts on a sympathetic face. “He was a good man.”

“He was,” James says, and Natasha watches his smile twitch downwards.

Rumlow watches, too. “I’ve heard a lot about you lately, Buck. Didn’t even think it was you at first. But here you are! Where are you all headed, then?”

Seconds pass before James says, “France.”

“Yeah? Where in France?”

“Paris.”

Rumlow nods and Natasha wonders if they should get out their papers.

“It’s a shame when good comrades leave the motherland. We need good, loyal Russians here.”

The way he says it- mild, but with eyes like a hawk, traveling between all of them- makes Natasha want to take him out and get the hell off the train. What is he playing at? Maybe he likes to toy with his food before he- well, shoots it.

“But,” Rumlow continues with a sigh. “We can’t stop people doing what they want, as long as they’re doing it legally.”

Natasha slips her hand into her jacket where her fake papers sit.

When no one says anything, Rumlow leans back in his seat and stretches out his legs again. “So. These things I’ve heard about you, James- sorry, Buck. It’s Buck, right? I’d call you Bucky but honestly, that sounds pretty ridiculous. Who came up with that?”

“Me,” says Steve from beside him.

Rumlow looks at him like he’s hardly noticed his presence. “Right,” he says, almost polite but not quite getting there.

“I’ll take your comment under consideration,” James says in a voice that would be dry if it wasn’t underpinned with nerves. “What’ve you heard?”

Rumlow hums again, turning back to him. “Oh, you know. The usual things about people who are going through tough times- stealing and the like.”

James stays silent. Then he says, “I remember a kid who used to filch apples from the palace kitchen with me.”

“We aren’t children anymore, James.” Rumlow tilts his head at him like an inquisitive bird. “There’s a _very_ disturbing rumour I’ve heard about you, one I’m hoping you would refute for me.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“It’s just, I know you wouldn’t do it. Because you’re a lot of things, but you’re your father’s son first. Right?”

James’ throat clicks. His hand comes up and rubs absently at his forehead. His fingers disappear under his hair where the scar sits. “You know I am.”

Rumlow nods slowly. He’s too calm. He stays calm even as he says, “I’ve heard you’re trying to cash in on the Anastasia rumours.”

His gaze never strays from James’ face, but Natasha’s skin prickles. She should’ve worn a hat to hide her red hair; worn sunglasses to cover her green eyes. Sitting her in the train compartment with both of them showing- it’s too exposed. It feels like a confession.

James’ voice stays steady. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know,” Rumlow says. “You wouldn’t spit on your father- _both_ our fathers- memory like that. You wouldn’t spit on Russia, on the country we’re building on the ashes of the Romanov pigs.”

People are passing outside the compartment. Natasha watches them out of the corner of her eye. No one would do a thing if an officer shot all three of them. No one would dare. She wouldn’t, if she was in their place.

Rumlow continues, “You know what we officers have to do when it comes to the Anastasia rumours?”

“What you’re told, I’m guessing.”

“What is _right_ ,” Rumlow corrects. He braces his elbows on his knees, leaning forwards again. “And you know what, James? I know you’d do the same. Like any loyal Russian. You’d report anyone who pretended to be her, and if you found a woman who turned out to _be_ her you’d gun the bitch down.”

He stares at James. Then he breaks out into a grin, one that starts off small and grows. “Not like you’d have to do that- you know better than anyone, yes? You saw the bitch die. You got that honour. Honestly, I often get jealous.”

Natasha thinks _bitch_. Then she thinks _she was eight years old, a child, who are you calling a bitch?_ Then she thinks, _he saw her die?_

Steve says it before she can: “You saw her die?”

James is sitting very still. His hands are clenched in his lap. He won’t look away from Rumlow.

“He didn’t tell you?” Rumlow frowns. “Comrade, I would tell everyone I met! It’s a great pride- you saw the beginning of our new world.”

James stays silent. His eyes flicker towards Natasha, then down to his lap.

Steve stares at him. Then, to Rumlow- not taking his eyes from Bucky- he says, “No, he never mentioned it.” He looks almost betrayed, like something has been taken from him.

In turn, relief floods Natasha’s chest- along with a very faint dread. “You saw it?”

“I did,” James says, very quietly. Then, clearing his throat and sitting up straighter: “Uh, yeah. I saw it. I never told _you_ ,” he says, and the last of it is directed at Rumlow, who shrugs.

“Your father told mine, mine told me. He said you caught her as she was about to escape the house.”

“What happened,” Natasha asks. Her heart beats high in her throat.

Rumlow turns to James, expectant.

It’s a second before James speaks. “Uh, she tried to run away. My father- shot at her.”

“And finished off the Romanov line for good,” Rumlow says, flashing another grin. “I tell you, those people- our fathers, the other guards- they’ll be in the history books as national heroes in years to come, comrade. Mark my words.”

With that, he eases himself to his feet. “Well, I’d better go and check on my fellow officers. There will be one coming along in a minute to check your papers- not that it’ll be a problem for law-abiding citizens like yourselves. I’ll be back to catch up later, Buck.”

He leaves, and the door sliding shut behind him is loud enough to make Natasha’s eyes close.

Gunshots. Running through the snow- a boy looking down at her, eyes wet and shocked- what colour had his hair been? Those eyes, wet and shocked- what colour were they?

“You saw the body,” Natasha says, half-question.

James shakes his head. “No. We had to leave. But I saw her get shot.”

“You saw the bullet hit her? The blood?”

“I-” James takes a very long, thin breath. “No. I heard the shot and then she fell. She was too far away for me to see anything else.”

Natasha’s breath hitches.

- _a shot that takes over the world. At the same time, her shoe hits a rock and the snow rushes up to meet her as she falls. There’s a pain, but it isn’t gunshot pain, it’s hard and sharp and centred on her forehead. Her head is bleeding profusely when she wakes, unsure how much time has passed or where she is, why is she here? It’s so cold, her hands are wet with_ -

“Natasha? Tasha?” It’s James.

Natasha blinks. The boys are both looking at her, worry clear in their faces. Natasha realizes she’s clutching at the outline of her necklace through her jacket.

“I’m fine,” she assures them. She drops both of her hands back into her lap, then closes her eyes and breathes in.

She had dreams with flashes of that, but they were never so clear. Her dreams shifted, tweaked the events, but that- that felt real. Like a memory. Like there was more before the memory to deconstruct- and there had been more, yes? Darkness, and a boy’s voice.

Natasha looks sideways. Beside her, James has turned back towards the window. Natasha pictures him squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to run from his own memories.

 _If you are Anastasia_ , she thinks, _then James is the boy. And the boy tried to have you killed_.

She only has snatches of him. She has never been able to make out what he had said- but, apparently, it had been something damning. Something to alert his father to come running, to bring his gun- had James grabbed her? Tried to stop her from running? Called her a Romanov pig, like Rumlow had?

He had taken her hand. That, she knows. Had that been because he meant to lead her to her slaughter? He had been a child, too. Ten years old, maybe eleven. Could a child have led another to their deaths? She can’t picture a child version of James being anything apart from kind, but then again-

The train rocks on the tracks. Natasha watches James for some time longer before turning to face the window herself.

He does seem remorseful, at least. Maybe he regrets his actions. It’s been closer to twenty years than ten, after all, and that’s a lot of growing to do, especially in the lives they have been given.

As Natasha watches the scenery, she tries to match the boy to the man sitting beside her, the man who has become dangerously dear. _One more reason to separate yourself from him_ , she thinks.

Her resolve sets. James is her partner in crime, no more. She will distance herself from him and if she discovers her true identity is what she suspects it is, she will lead him to believe otherwise; make him think she’s just that goddamn good at the con. And if he finds out anyway, if he tries to take matters into his own hands-

Well. She will do what she must.

Natasha shies away from the thought. _Think of something else_. She tries to concentrate on the white outside the window; the smear of mountain peaks and trees. Russia is passing her by, and if all goes well she will never see it again.

She’d thought she would feel victorious when she reached that moment. Instead it feels strangely bitter.

Her hand comes up absently to touch her necklace through her jacket once again. Outside the train window, Russia blurs into something unrecognizable.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky spends the entire train ride sweating bullets through his clothes and trying to look calm.

 _Fucking_ Rumlow. He’d heard the bastard got into being an officer- of course he did, that messed up shithead, Bucky’s sure he’s the one who killed the neighbourhood cats when they were kids- and he’d even dodged the guy in St. Petersburg a few times, but he never expected the guy to show up on the train, obviously on a mission to sort this Anastasia mess out.

“He’s definitely onto us,” Bucky says about half an hour after Rumlow has left, when the initial nerves have faded into a low background buzz. To Natasha, he says, “He’d kill you right now, but he wants to know if you are her or if he should drag an imposter back and make an example of you.”

“He seems pretty sure Anastasia’s dead,” Steve says. He’s still looking at Bucky in a way that makes him squirm with guilt.

In an even voice that makes Bucky sure she’s freaking out on the inside, Natasha says, “There was never a body. His superiors must have told him to make sure.”

Bucky wants so badly to look over at her. Instead he averts his eyes when she gets up and announces she’s heading to the bathroom.

She leaves and the compartment falls into silence once again. Bucky can feel Steve’s eyes on him.

“What?”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Steve shake his head.

“You never told me,” Steve says quietly. He doesn’t sound mad, which is probably bad. Anger is Steve’s go-to emotion with these kind of things. Steve has been simmering in low-key anger for his entire life.

Bucky shrugs. “I never told anyone, Stevie.”

He swallows, thinks about saying _I saw the rest of them, too, Steve- the king, the queen, the heirs of the Russian throne. I saw their dead servants. Their dogs were dying on the cellar floor, they killed the dogs, Steve, did you know that? And not well. They didn’t kill any of them well: dogs and servants and Romanovs. It wasn’t fast, it was all very slow, I was in my backyard when the shots started in the house beside mine. And then the shots stopped but the screaming didn’t, that went on for a long time_ -

“It’s not the kind of thing you tell,” he continues, so he doesn’t say the other things. His voice breaks on the last word, a rough break rather than a tearful one, and for that he’s grateful.

“Jesus.” Steve wets his lips. “Buck-”

Bucky stands. “I’m gonna- I’m-”

He trails off, but Steve doesn’t speak when Bucky pushes himself up and walks out the compartment door. He gets out of range of the compartment, out of any compartment, and then he sags against the wall. He tilts his head against it and closes his eyes.

He had spoken to her, to all of the Romanov kids, when they were staying in the house beside his. They were under house arrest but they were allowed out into the backyard and Bucky would peek over and sometimes they’d help him clamber over into their yard.

He doesn’t remember a lot about that year. He tries not to think about it. He prefers to think of the days in the palace when he worked as a kitchen boy- the royals didn’t come near the servants quarters. He saw them from a distance; caught glimpses into their lives and nothing more.

In the last year when the Romanovs were in that safehouse, though- Nikolas would offer him lemonade. Alexandria asked after his father’s health. Olga told him jokes and Bucky learned to keep an eye on Alexei in case of illness. Up close, they were all very human.

 _Stop_. Bucky clenches his fists at his sides. _Think of something else_.

A door opening startles him into turning around.

The bathroom door swings open to reveal Natasha. When she sees him, raises her eyebrows. Her look turns expectant when he stands silently.

“Oh, uh-” He pockets his hands. “I wasn’t following you? I just- needed some air.”

“Next to the toilet,” she says.

It jolts a laugh out of him. “Yeah. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

She smiles, but it’s a pale version of the ones he’s been coaxing out of her for the past two months. He already misses those smiles. He doubts he’ll get them for much longer, no matter how the con turns out.

“Well, good luck finding your air,” she tells him. She sidesteps him, but the train hallway is narrow and she ends up pressing up against his side as she passes him. Bucky tries not to inhale when her hair brushes past his nose, and then Natasha is in front of him.

She starts to walk away and something deep in Bucky panics. He knows she’s only going back to the train compartment, but-

“You know something we didn’t cover in princess training?”

She pauses and turns around.

“You’re saying you _forgot_ something?”  She places a hand on her hip and for a moment it’s like what Bucky thinks he’ll call _the good ol’ days_ \- trying to keep warm in a hollowed-out ballroom, making each other laugh and learning about the dead royals.

“Dancing,” Bucky tries. He nods towards an empty train compartment a few feet down from them. “We should really get that down for when you make your first appearance as the grand duchess.”

She looks at him. Bucky often gets the feeling that she’s sizing him up, figuring out his motives, deconstructing him in her head, but this is the first time she’s been so obvious about it.

He prepares for a refusal and an awkward walk back to their own compartment, but then she says, “Okay,” and heads over to the empty one. She opens the door and steps in.

Bucky hurries in with her. He closes the door behind them and turns around. Natasha is standing in the middle of the compartment, mountains flashing past the window beside her.

 _Shit. Breathe_. Bucky steps closer and motions towards her. “Okay, you put your arm-”

She guides his fake arm to her waist, then fits his flesh hand to her own. She slips her other hand around his neck. “Continue,” she says.

Bucky has to hold back a smile. He would love to know this woman for so much longer than the world is going to give them, but he’ll take what he can get.

“Okay, step with me. One, two, three-”

She follows him in his steps, and it comes as easily as everything else they’ve taught her. They go a few rotations like this, and the train rocks beneath them and makes them fight to keep their shared balance.

On the fourth time around, Bucky says, “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Don’t be.” She doesn’t look at him. “It gives me a reason to why you’re so sure.”

He struggles for the right words. Her hand is very warm against the back of his neck. “You don’t need to worry about being her.”

She doesn’t respond, so he tries again: “You don’t want to be her, right? So, this-”

“I don’t want to be her,” she agrees, cutting him off. She hasn’t moved, but she also hasn’t tried getting out of his light hold.

She is also, Bucky realizes, very close. It comes with dancing, but Bucky thinks that this dance is supposed to have the dancers hold each other further away than they’re holding each other. 

“You don’t seem too happy,” Bucky says.

She gives a short, aborted shake of her head. “You didn’t tell me.”

Bucky closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, she is finally looking up at him. It tangles his tongue to the point that it takes him a moment to get out, “I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t talk about that part of my life, you know that. I want- I wanted to forget it ever happened.”

The corner of her mouth quirks upwards. “I suppose I’m lucky in that way, then.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it that,” Bucky says weakly.

She hums. Then, slowly, she halts their steps and twists out of his grip.

Bucky lets it happen.

She turns towards the door. Bucky waits for her to leave, but instead she stands there as the train shakes gently around them, then not so gently.

Then she says, dry, “Of course I know how to dance, James,” and reaches out for the handle and opens the door and is gone down the hallway.

Bucky watches the empty space where she had been.

 _James_. It sounds so much sweeter when she says it than when Rumlow says it. When Rumlow says his name, it sounds like a reminder of the worst thing he ever did. But when Natasha says it- it’s like coming home after being away for a long time. It feels warm and familiar and makes Bucky feel very calm.

Bucky blows out a breath. He turns around and watches the landscape flash past them, too fast to see anything now, and then heads back to their compartment.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

They don’t spot Rumlow when they get off the train, but he had dropped by a few hours before the train stopped in Paris, so they know he’s still on their tail.

The three of them still talk with each other, discussing directions and weather and comparing the differences- the only thing Bucky can tell right now is that it’s kind of warmer in France than it is in Russia, he’s hoping like hell some other differences will come up soon- and they make casual conversation, even make each other laugh once or twice, but they don’t touch on the Anastasia subject more than they have to.

Bucky sure as heck isn’t going to bring it up. He thinks he crushed Steve’s dreams a little- Steve had really believed it, for a bit, that their Natasha was the lost princess. And Natasha had believed, too- she still does, Bucky thinks. And the worst part is that Bucky is getting creeping tendrils of doubt. There was no body, after all. That phrase loops over in his head as they walk the neverending blocks to Tony’s hotel- _no body, there was no body, they never found her body_ -

At least Steve’s mood improves the closer they get to Tony. The more Bucky watches him, the more Steve seems to be shaking off whatever spell Bucky had put him under with the whole not-telling-him-about-watching-Anastasia-die shtick.

By the time they make it to Tony’s door- his place is smaller than his Russian place, but it’s still worlds larger than anything Bucky has ever been able to afford- Steve is smiling to himself like a dope.

Bucky can’t help shooting Natasha a glance, raising his eyebrows towards Steve. Luckily, she’s already watching Steve in amusement and returns Bucky’s look with gusto.

 _Dope_ , Bucky mouths towards Steve, fond.

Almost imperceptibly, she cocks her head from side to side, like she’s considering it.

Steve knocks and stands back. He’s jittering on the spot.

“Breathe,” Natasha tells him.

“I’m breathing,” Steve says, but it’s taken on a telltale wheeze. “Oh god. I’m actually in Paris. I’m actually gonna see Tony again. Shit. Do I look okay?”

Before either of them can answer, the door swings open. Inside is a familiar face, one that had flitted in and out on the sidelines for most of their time with Tony.

Upon seeing Steve, Jarvis breaks into a smile that could match Steve’s. “Master Rogers. Might I say, it’s a relief to see you here at last. Sir has been climbing the walls for the past several days. Do come in.”

He greets Bucky as he comes in, and Bucky shakes his hand. It provides the same bemusement that it did the first time he’d done it.

“And this is-” Jarvis pauses at seeing Natasha up close. Something wavers across his face. “Ah. Yes.” He presses his lips together. “Well, I do hope it is really… you.”

“As do we all,” Natasha replies.

 _Five seconds_ , Bucky finds himself thinking. _Just five damn seconds where we aren’t reminded of it_ -

There’s a clattering sound from the staircase that causes them all to turn. From the stairway, Bucky hears, “Jarvis! Where are my best cufflinks, the ones Pepper got me last year- not the joke ones, the silver ones, the ones with the-”

He stumbles into view. It’s a welcome sight to see Tony again, and from the looks of Tony- who rights himself, registers extra people in the room and zeroes in on Steve with an expression that goes from surprise to an almost uncomfortable amount of joy- he feels the same.

“Hi,” Steve says when a few seconds pass and no-one has spoken.

“Hello,” Tony says. His hands open and close around nothing. “You made it.”

“I did.” Steve takes a step forward like he’s not aware he’s doing it, he’s too busy paying attention to Tony.

Tony says, “Huh,” and that’s as far as he gets before Steve rushes him, closing the gap and throwing his arms around him, dragging Tony’s face down into a kiss.

Bucky clasps his hands behind his back, real hand gripping his fake one, and tries not to feel weird about watching his best friend mack on someone, let alone a fella. When the kiss doesn’t end after several seconds, Bucky looks sideways. Natasha is already giving him a questioning look- _did this happen often?_

Bucky rolls his eyes in response, broadcasting weariness, and tamps down on the pleasure that rises up in him when Natasha gives the smallest of laughs.

Beside them, Jarvis clears his throat. “Sirs!”

“What, yeah,” Tony says when he breaks away from Steve, still clinging to him. He looks towards Jarvis. “I’m busy, I haven’t seen Steve in a year, what?”

Jarvis nods towards Natasha and Bucky.

“Oh, right.” Tony clears his throat, untangling himself from Steve. “Good to see you again, Bucky. How’s my arm treating you?”

“ _My_ arm,” Bucky corrects him. “And it’s going good. Might need a touch up, though.”

Tony snaps his fingers at him. “Remind me,” he says, and then looks at Natasha. “So, Steve seems to truly believe that you might be-”

He stops. His Steve-induced smile falters and then gutters entirely as his eyes track over her and widen, catching on her face and staying there.

“Huh,” he says again, and this time is less wondrous and more shaken. He blinks rapidly, looking over at Steve when he comes up and bumps Tony’s shoulder. “Shit. Wow. Sorry, you just- you _really_ look like…”

He trails off. When Natasha walks up to him, his shoulders hunch and then hastily un-hunch.

“I’m Natasha,” she says, and drops into a curtsey. From it, she looks up at him. “Or, that’s what people have told me. I am hoping that Count Fury might clarify some things.”

“Yeah,” Tony says distantly. Then, almost as an afterthought, he bends into a bow. Straightening up, he says, “Sorry, I’m- I knew her. Anastasia. When she was a kid. I mean, of course when she was a kid-”

He pauses. “This is- strange,” he continues.

Guilt curls in Bucky’s stomach again.

“It must be,” Natasha says. She places her hands behind her back and Bucky watches as her fingers twist together, the only sign that she isn’t perfectly calm. “It’s strange for me, too.”

“I’ll bet,” Tony mumbles. Then, louder: “If you’re really her, of course. Which, after years of imposters lining up, I doubt. No offence.”

“None taken.”

“No offence,” Tony adds to Steve, who shrugs.

He comes up to Tony, then reaches down and takes his hand. “You can ask her what you need to ask,” he says.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Tony leads them into a living room. _A_ living room, because of course this place has several. Bucky sits on a cushion that’s probably worth a week’s rent back home.

“So,” Tony says, settling down on a couch that Natasha takes the other end of. “How do you like your tea?”

Natasha blinks at him. “My tea?”

“Yes.”

She hesitates. “Well. My tastes have changed over the years, like anyone’s, but I don’t like tea very much. I prefer hot water with lemon, when I can get it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Tony crosses his legs. “Do you have a favourite food?”

Again, Natasha pauses. “Cake,” she says after a moment.

“Any particular kind?”

“I-” A crease appears in the middle of her eyebrows. “I don’t know the name- it’s dense and pale and smells like oranges.”

Tony’s eyes flick over her once again. He leans forward, then seems to stop himself. “Steve mentioned you have very little memories of your childhood. What _do_ you remember?”

Natasha’s lips press together. When she speaks, it’s vague and halting- hazy memories of coastlines, specific chairs, an ornate hairbrush, a music box-

“Music box?”

“Yes.” Natasha raises a hand to her chest, touching something through the fabric. Bucky assumes it’s the necklace he still hasn’t caught a glimpse of after months of near-constant time together.

“Do you remember anything else about this music box?”

“I, um.” Her eyelashes flutter and Bucky doesn’t think it’s entirely an act. “It was- green? The size of my palm, maybe. And had designs around the sides of, uh. I can’t remember.”

“What was the music that played when the box opened?”

“I can’t remember,” Natasha repeats, frustrated.

“But wh-”

Steve reaches over from his chair, which he had dragged close to Tony’s side of the couch. He covers Tony’s knee with his hand and squeezes.

“Right,” Tony says, glancing back at him before turning to Natasha. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Natasha smiles, but her hands are shaking minutely in her lap. Bucky watches them clench and ease. “Please continue.”

Tony stares at her. “Do you remember,” he starts, cautious, “how you escaped the house in Yekaterinburg?”

A shudder works its way through Bucky, and he sees Jarvis look at him from the corner of his eye.

Natasha is silent. Then she says, “I think- I hid. In a cupboard, maybe. It was… dark. And then the door opened and there was a boy.”

Bucky turns around and faces the fireplace. He doesn’t do anything like pretend to admire the plaster, but god, he can’t watch her say it- she’s going to take what she learned on the train and spin a story, and he doesn’t blame her, but watching her craft a story out of something he wanted to badly to forget-

Tony asks, “A boy?”

“Yes.” A pause, and the sound of Natasha inhaling sharply. “I was- I had a piece of glass in my hand, from a vase that I broke when I was trying to hide. It was… green. I took a broken bit and hid in the closet and when the boy opened the door, I tried to stab him with it- I _did_ stab him with it, in the forehead. He kept bleeding into his eyes and wiping it away.”

Bucky stares into the fireplace. In the grate are ashes that haven’t been warm in a long time.

Another shudder wrings him, smaller this time, but as intense as a tidal wave. The vase, the shard of it- it was green, it had made him think of forests in picture books. Anastasia had swiped at him with the green shard once, twice, and as he had opened his mouth to say _I won’t hurt you_ , she had hit home and he had recoiled backwards as pain flashed across his forehead.

“What did this boy do?”

“I don’t-” Rapid breaths and a rustling noise.

Tony says, “It’s okay, you’re- ah, you’re safe, it’s fine. Take your time.”

Bucky’s own breath sounds too loud in his own head. _What did this boy do?_

“He must’ve…” Natasha swallows audibly enough that Bucky can hear it. “I think he must’ve alerted someone? A guard came and I- I went out the back door. The boy was there, too, he must’ve-”

She stops and Bucky wants to turn around, to throw himself at her feet, yell _I never would have hurt you, princess, I told you to run, I tried to get you away!_

“He was holding my hand. He must’ve tried to hold me back,” Natasha says, but she sounds unsure. “I, uh. I ran, and the guard was shooting at me, but I was getting away. I was running, but then- I tripped, my foot caught on something, and when I fell I hit my head.”

“And after that?”

“After that-” another thin, rattled breath. “I walked. I just kept walking until I found a city, and then I was in a hospital and people were asking me my name and I didn’t know it.”

Silence. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and shoves his good hand in his pocket so they won’t see it tremble. Jesus Christ. _God_.

Natasha-

 _Anastasia_ -  
  
Tony asks, “Did you have anything that might have helped them identify you? Or-”

“I had this.” The rasp of metal on fabric, and this time the hitch of breath comes from Tony.

“Can I see-”

“Of course.”

Tony pauses. Then, softly, amazingly: “…Together in Paris.”

Bucky makes a noise in the back of his throat.

Her necklace- that _fucking_ necklace! The green one, green like the vase, green like the music box- the music box that could only get opened by the necklace, Fury had given it to her and Anastasia had shown him one day in the backyard of the Yekaterinburg house, she had unlocked the music box with the necklace she always wore around her neck and she had hummed along with the tune, how had it gone-

“Does it help?” Natasha asks.

Bucky listens to Tony laugh. “It- yeah, it helps. Shit. _Jesus_.” A noise like Tony has just stood up, and Steve saying Tony’s name.

“We need to get you to Fury,” Tony says. “Soon. I think I can convince him to see you tomorrow- I might have to lie to do it, he’s not seeing any more Anastasias, but we can probably ambush him-”

Bucky straightens and starts towards the door.

“Buck?”

Bucky stops and turns without thinking much about it. They’re all looking at him questioningly, though Tony doesn’t seem too concerned- he’s busy staring at Natasha. Anastasia. _Fuck_.

“I gotta-” Bucky hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Need some air.”

Unwillingly, his gaze falls on Natasha. The lost heir of Russia, the last princess, the only survivor of the Yekaterinburg cellar, is sitting five feet away from him with a concerned frown.

Natasha. He can’t see her as anything else. Trying to plaster the image of that girl he’s spent the last fifteen years thinking of as dead is impossible.

As he meets her eyes, her face changes. _She knows I know it’s really her_ , Bucky thinks, and as the thought crosses his mind, she drops her gaze to her hands, which are knotted together in her lap.

She looks, Bucky considers, almost fearful. Does she think he would-?

“I’ll be back in a bit,” Bucky says, and half-stumbles out the front door. The wind is cold and cutting and a stark relief to the luxurious room he’d just walked out of.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Bucky stays in the front yard long enough that Steve comes to find him.

“Sorry for stealing away your Tony-time,” Bucky says.

Steve shrugs. “We’ve got more of it.”

Bucky looks over at him. He’s in a thicker jacket that definitely isn’t his. “You thinking of staying here, after all this is over?”

“Dunno,” Steve admits. He leans sideways and rocks their shoulders together. “Depends mostly on you. What’re you thinking?”

Bucky- Bucky can’t come up with an answer to that. He keeps quiet until Steve sighs.

“You remember it, don’t you? The green vase, the-”

“-the music box and a lot of other shit she said, yeah.” Bucky breathes in hard through his teeth. “God. If she’d let me see the necklace at _any point_ \- I’d have believed her. I’d have known that she didn’t really get shot. That she-”

There’s a sudden lump in his throat. He swallows over it.

“It’s really her,” Bucky says hoarsely. “Steve. It’s _her_.”

Steve doesn’t answer, but when Bucky looks over he looks just as dazed, even if it’s slowly sinking in.

“Yeah, it is,” Steve says. “Good to see you’re finally catching on.”

Bucky barks a weak laugh at that. Then he sobers. “I didn’t want to believe it was her. Everyone knows- everyone knows she’s dead. Died years ago.”

“Aren’t you glad she’s alive?”

“Of course.” Bucky sighs. “Just- _god_. I thought she was at rest. I thought at least- at least she didn’t have to live with all of her dead family at her heels.”

Steve doesn’t reply, but he does stand with him in the yard until the sun starts to set over the buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 _(In Natasha’s dreams there is a song and a man. She can’t make out the words or even the man’s voice, but she knows he’s singing just like she knows she’s singing along with him. As the song comes from her throat the words blur into nonsense, snippets- the image of a gleaming ballroom; people spinning around it. White birds- swans? – and a carriage ride with horses huffing ahead. Sometimes Natasha will think the song is about memory. Sometimes she thinks that’s too much of a coincidence. Most of all there’s the feeling of comfort as she leans against the man’s side. When she wakes from this dream there is a tune in her head that she is forever trying to hum, but it slips away seconds after she opens her eyes.)_  
  


  


 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They’re going to ambush Fury at the ballet. Natasha is glad for the public place- she still hasn’t counted out Rumlow as a threat, and every moment she hasn’t taken him out of the equation is another moment of stress. Being in a public space when they confront Fury means there’s less of a chance that Rumlow will try to assassinate her, or at least, if he does try, he’ll have a hard time.

But meeting Fury at the ballet means they still have a day with nothing to do. Natasha spends most of it walking around Tony’s house, a vague nostalgia rising at the sight of certain throw pillows, pieces of furniture, paintings.

When Natasha doesn’t see hide or hair of him by 1pm, she heads to his bedroom and knocks.

“One second-” muffled noises and then a voice that isn’t Tony’s. Natasha supresses a smile despite the situation when the door opens to reveal Tony in a robe, and behind him in the bed is Steve with the covers pulled up around his chin.

She waves. He waves back, looking sheepish but more content than she’s ever seen him.

Tony asks, “Did you need something? You can call Jarvis, he’s-”

“No, everything’s fine. I just wanted to ask, did-” _Anastasia_ , she starts to say, but it catches in her throat. “Did, uh, I come here much as a child?”

Tony blinks at her. “You did. Our mothers were friends.”

It fits into Natasha’s mind as if it had always been there- their mothers had been friends. Of course. Tony’s mother- Maria, yes, like her sister. She had Tony’s big brown eyes, they had spoken in quiet Italian when Howard wasn’t around- Howard?

 _His father_ , her mind quickly supplies. It comes together in fragments.

“She called you _bambino_ ,” Natasha hears herself say.

Tony gives her a startled look, but it fades into something mournful and fond. “She did,” he agrees. His gaze goes faraway, but then he clears his throat. “Can I- do you need anything else?”

“No.” She steps back. “I just wondered. This house seemed familiar.”

“We summered in it once or twice,” Tony tells her.

They did, didn’t they? “Thank you,” she says. “Go back to your Steve.”

He grins at her. “Gladly,” he says, and as he closes the door she gets a flash of the boy- man?- he used to be: Tony, ten years her elder, cocky and quiet when he wasn’t manic and loud; unsure and clumsy with her and her little brother except when he was the kind of brilliant which meant he was a kid at heart himself.

He’d been closer to her older sisters. He taught Olga to play the piano-

Natasha squeezes her eyes shut at the onslaught of memories. She takes a long, deep breath in, then out, and her eyes fly open at the sound of footsteps.

James slows to a halt as he sees her. “Oh.”

“Hello.” Natasha doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t let the word bite, either.

James gestures uselessly. “I was just heading out to the garden-”

“For some air?”

He makes a face like he’s holding back a smile, albeit a sad one. “Yeah. Needed a lot of it lately.”

She wants to make a joke. They’ve tossed banter back and forth at each other for months, it’s grown almost automatic to throw a light-hearted barb at him. But now- well. Now she’s on the fence about whether or not he’s going to kill her for the good of Russia, or report her to Rumlow and let him do it.

“It’s a good garden,” James continues stiffly. His hands go into his pockets. “Uh, pretty, I mean. The garden. ‘S good to look at.”

It’s Natasha’s turn to hold back a smile. How did this man end up getting a reputation as a decent conman in St. Petersburg? Actually, no, she knows how- he’s whip-smart and hides it well until he doesn’t have to, he’s charming and can bullshit his way around whoever he has to. He’s likeable, too much so, and usually Natasha isn’t so swept up by it, but there’s something about James that cuts her to the quick.

He’s dangerous, this boy. Even if she didn’t think he was wrestling against the urge to kill her for his country, she’d be overly wary of him.

“In that case, I’ll have to follow.” She steps to the side and tilts her head at him. “To see this famed garden.”

“Good choice,” he says weakly. He starts walking and when he reaches her, Natasha falls into step beside him.

When James gets them lost on the way outside- embarrassing, really, since it’s only a few turns down the hall to the doors that take them out into the garden- Natasha guides him with something like muscle memory.

The two of them don’t take the patio seats on the grass. Instead they stand near the door and look out over the garden; copious flowers and fruits and trees all trimmed and styled to perfection.

Natasha remembers, hazily, a makeshift picnic on the grass. She had been very small, and Tony’s mother had held her after she scraped her knee-

“How’re you holding up?”

Natasha lets out a breath. “I’m fine.”

James is quiet. Then he says, “You don’t seem it.”

 _You can talk, comrade._ “It’s a lot to take in.”

“Yeah,” James says softly. He tips his head up and watches the sky. Natasha does the same: it’s getting dark. They’ll head out to the ballet in an hour or so.

She watches James as much as she can without turning her head. He’s still stiff, but that could be anything- the shock of finally realizing, or the upcoming meeting with Fury.

“The con’s going smoother than any of us could’ve expected,” Natasha says.

He snorts. “Not much of a con anymore. This is- us delivering the lost princess home at last.”

“Russia is my home.” It comes too easily, and Natasha wants to call it back into her throat. “Was,” she amends. She can hardly go back- she could, if she went now, but after Fury finds out he’ll want to re-instate her position. She’ll go public. There will be no going back to Russia then, not without arriving in a body bag.

She glances over at James to find him staring at her, only to wrench his gaze away when their eyes meet.

It’s for the best, Natasha tries to console herself. It doesn’t make her feel any better.

“So,” he says. “Are you going to leave with the riches that come with being a grand duchess after you get reinstated, or…”

“I’m not sure,” Natasha admits. She shifts on the spot, crossing her arms. There is a short distance between them right now, standing beside each other with their arms nearly touching.

James nods. “The life of a princess doesn’t seem too shabby,” he says. “Though- what did you call it? A gilded cage.”

He remembers. A smile pulls at Natasha’s mouth before she starts wondering what else he remembers- more than her, obviously. While she has glimpses, he must have so much more. Would he tell her about it, if she asked?

Natasha swallows the questions. _Distance_. She is distancing herself from him, as she must. Still, as they stand in the garden and watch the sky darken, there’s a bizarre urge to run from it all. To gather her things and take off, see what France has to offer, flit from place to place like she has done for most of her memory.

 _Run away with me._ She doesn’t say it, but she could. The words pulse against the back of her teeth. They ache with how much she wants to let them out. She believes, almost, that he wouldn’t hurt her.

Still, there is that coin of doubt. Natasha has acted on less and she has always been better off for it. Whenever she’s come close to trust, it has always betrayed her.

“Where will you go after you get the reward,” Natasha asks.

James opens his mouth. Then he closes it. “Uh. I don’t know yet.”

“Ah.”

They stand in silence for a long time, not looking at each other. Eventually James says he’s going to get ready for the ballet, and heads inside.

Natasha turns to watch him leave and tries to picture him as a child, half the size he is now, big eyes and a bleeding forehead-

She blinks. That scar he has, hidden by his hair…

“James?”

He turns, already standing in the hall, the patio doors opening into the garden. “Yes?”

 _Don’t ask_ , Natasha thinks. _Tell him nevermind and let him leave_.

She unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “That scar you hide with your hair- how did that happen?”

He hesitates. But then he says, “A girl thought I was going to hurt her.”

 _A boy opening a door, staring down at her. His eyes were brown. She remembers now. He looked down at her with big brown eyes and his mouth opened. What did he say? His mouth opened and_ -

She asks, “Were you?”

He raises a hand unconsciously to his head, going to touch his hair where the scar hides, but he drops his hand at the last minute.

“Tasha,” he starts, and she is ridiculously glad he doesn’t call her by another name, he calls her by the name he crafted for her, a shortened version of the name she’s made into hers.

Before he can continue, Jarvis enters the hallway and stops when he sees their expressions. “Shall I come back in another-?”

In unison, James and Natasha say it’s fine. Jarvis eyes them for a moment but then he’s folding his hands behind his back, saying, “I’ve laid out your outfits for the ballet tonight. Due to time restraints, I think you should both start getting ready now.”

“You got it,” James says. He heads for his room without once looking back at Natasha.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Natasha comes downstairs in a glimmering blue dress that is familiar both because she’s worn this type of thing to con rich men out of money, and also because it triggers paper-thin memories of being dressed in things as delicate as this. Once, she wore clothes lined with diamonds and it was utterly normal. She has dressed primarily in rags for over ten years- but she has memories, so faint they could be dreams, of material that felt soft as silk; scratchy lace and jewels.

She had complained about the lace. That, she remembers.

As she descends, she spots Steve and Tony leaning against each other in a doorway. Or, rather, Steve is leaning against a doorway and Tony is leaning against him, his hand absently stroking Steve’s elbow.

Steve’s gaze is very soft, but full of light. Natasha thinks back to him telling her about Tony- _he’s bright,_ he had said. Natasha gets the feeling that whatever kind of bright Tony is, it ignites Steve also.

Natasha ducks her head against a smile. “Hello, boys.”

The two of them spring apart. It’s a small motion, but it’s there. Natasha supposes that Tony has to be careful, even in his own home.

“Wow,” Steve says when he registers her. “You look- beautiful! Bucky, come and look at Natasha, she cleans up great- Buck?”

James, who had appeared almost instantly into the hallway from the living room seeming distracted, had looked up at Natasha and his mouth had dropped open.

He stares at her in a way she wants to find funny, but instead it feels dangerous. It reminds her of the first time they met in the street as adults: she had gotten caught in the crowd and he’d pulled off her hood, started saying something and then just gaped at her. Back then, it was because she’d looked so much like Anastasia. Now-

“Well,” she asks, raising her arms and doing a small twirl on the stairs.

James’ mouth snaps shut. “What?”

“Anything to say?”

“…No.”

“No?”

He leans on the doorframe he’d just come out of. He doesn’t do casual as well as he usually does when he’s wearing a suit that expensive. “What would I say?”

It comes out automatically, coyly: “I was hoping for a compliment.”

He stares up at her, oddly sombre, nothing of her playfulness. Natasha feels warning signs on instinct- _has he called Rumlow? Does he have plans for me?-_ but they feel weary, coming from habit rather than anything grounded in reality.

Natasha’s heart sinks in unison with James sinking into a bow like a gentleman, even ducking his head before looking back up at her again.

“You look,” he starts, and then he hesitates. “Like a princess.”

“That’s the aim,” Natasha says quietly. She’s dressed like one, she stands on the staircase with every bit of grace she has, her head held high. She doesn’t feel like a princess. She feels like she always does when she’s acting elegant and proper for a con.

Did she ever feel like a princess?

They head to the car, Jarvis opening the door for her, and she barely remembers to thank him before he closes the door behind her. As the car drives off, Natasha examines the lights of Paris through the window, which begin to streak by as the car picks up pace.

She decides as they pull up by the theatre, which advertises the ballet in gleaming lights. Once, she had felt like a princess. When she was a child the title had fit like it was made for her, just like her clothes. She had never been anything else, never wanted to be, never thought of another life. It had fit her as naturally as her name.

She fits it around her mouth silently as they enter the theatre: _Anastasia_ , the tumbling quality of it: _Ann-uh-stay-sha_ , the soft rasp that comes with the multiple _S_ ’s. She imagines introducing herself as such. It feels like any one of her fake names she had come up with. Over the years she has been Anya, Vera, Darya, and many more. _Anastasia_ feels like an addition rather than something she’s pulled back the veil on. She had expected that when she found out who she was before waking up in the hospital, in the snow, it would be a discovery that made everything finally click into place.

 _Natasha_ , she mouths as they are seated. James is one her left, Steve on her right, then Tony next to him. She looks down at James’ hand, which is on the arm rest next to her. It’s his flesh hand and his fingernails are large and square, his fingers long and lovely.

 _Tasha_ , she mouths. It fits better than _Anastasia_ at any rate.

Ahead of them, the curtains are drawn.

James leans in and sets his mouth next to her ear. His breath is warm against her ear, her cheek. “There, three boxes down- that’s Fury.”

She nods and he pulls away. When she looks towards the box, the light from the stage makes it hard for her eyes to adjust. But then they do, and Natasha sees a face that is much older than she remembers.

 _Nick Fury_ , she thinks. Then, with a fondness that feels borrowed: _Uncle Fury_. He’s wearing an eyepatch and looking impassively down at the stage. He had a face that gave nothing away, she remembers now- apart from the times when he’d look down at her and grin, and his entire face would give way to warmth.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

During intermission, Natasha and the others follow Tony to Fury’s box.

“Wait outside,” Tony tells her, squeezing her elbow. He heads through the curtains and Natasha doesn’t realize she isn’t breathing until Steve nudges her in the ribs.

“It’ll be fine,” James says from beside her, but he won’t look her way. Natasha thinks back to the train station, James’ hand holding hers. Now he’s standing a foot away from her and trying to be subtle about it.

Natasha stands out of the way of the trail of people heading for the bathrooms and strains to listen to whatever is happening past the curtains. For a while there’s nothing, but then Natasha catches snippets of what sounds like a hissed argument.

She sighs. He _had_ said not to see any more Anastasias.

After another minute Tony emerges through the curtains with a tight expression. “He won’t see you, so we’ll have to come up with an actual ambushing plan. Not- not tonight, though, I think if we walk you in now he’ll take a dive off the booth to avoid talking to you.”

Natasha nods. “That’s fair,” she says, though disappointment clamours in her throat. She doesn’t know if she wants this life, but- she does want to see Fury. She wants to finally see the person who gave her the necklace. She had loved him, once, and he had loved her, and she had spent so long wanting to know who he was.

She wants, more than anything, for him to recognize her. It won’t- it won’t fix things, but she imagines it will resemble healing. Natasha has no one from her past except- well, James, and he was a reluctant bystander at best and a child killer at worst.

“We’ll start a plan when we get back to yours,” she says. She starts towards the exit only for Steve to call her name.

She turns. “What?”

“Don’t you want to see the end?”

It takes a second for it to click. “I’ve seen it before,” she says, and heads down to the car and sits in the backseat. She closes her eyes, leaning back against the headrest.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

“We can’t force him to talk to you.”

“We can.” Natasha folds her arms over her dress. “We just need to do it when he’s in a better mood, and get everything out there before he knows to be angry. After I say what I- what I say, he’ll know it’s me. Or he’ll listen to me, at least.”

Tony is sitting on her couch- not next to her, but a cushion away. Natasha is grateful. She doesn’t know what she’d do it he tried to touch her comfortingly. “Do you have it planned? What you’re going to say?”

The more specific memory fragments. The necklace. The music box, the impossible tune, her escape from the Yekaterinburg house-

“Yes,” Natasha says.

Tony’s knee starts jumping up and down. She eyes it. It’s been jumping up and down intermittently since he sat on the couch- no, even in the car it had been going.

Natasha watches, bemused, as he pushes up off the couch and goes to tend the fire even though it’s roaring merrily away, and then goes to stand in front of the window. Had he been this hyperactive when Natasha was younger? Most of what she remembers of him is his quiet Italian spoken with his mother, playing piano out of boredom, lying on the living room floor doodling blueprints and equations that never made sense to her-

Steve comes in from the hallway, frowning. “Has anyone seen Bucky?”

“No,” Tony says, looking over at Natasha. “No? No,” he repeats to Steve when Natasha looks back blankly.

Steve blows out a breath. “Okay.”

“Should we be worried?”

Steve shrugs. “He said he was going to take a shower but the bathroom’s empty. So’s his room.”

Natasha’s gaze drops to the fireplace. A fire is crackling about two feet away from where Tony’s standing.

“Maybe he went for a walk,” Tony suggests, but it sounds thin. How much had Steve told him about James’ father, his attempted prevention of in Natasha escaping from the house her family was gunned down in?

Steve hums. “Yeah. He does get itchy when he’s been stuck in a house too-”

The front door bangs open, cutting Steve off as he and the others turn in the direction the noise came from. Soon comes the sound of arguing, faint but getting louder as it nears the living room, and suddenly James appears, looking stubborn and harried, and behind him-

Oh.

Natasha stands without noticing it as Fury is dragged through the door, glaring at James the whole time, and then at Tony when he notices him.

“You’re not seriously being caught up under their bullshit,” is the first thing out of Fury’s mouth. “I know you’ve been close to believing a few of them before, but fuck, Tony-”

James goes to stand next to Steve, dragging him into the corner, and Tony rushes forwards.

“Nick, I _know_ , okay, but if you’d just listen to her-”

Fury’s head tilts in Natasha’s direction and then jerks away, his eyes sticking with Tony as he talks over him. “-how many years has it been? I told you, if she was alive, she would’ve found a way to me. I’ll have no more-”

“She has the necklace, Nick, the one that opened that music box.”

Fury pauses. His gaze flickers near Natasha, but doesn’t land on her. “Objects can be found.”

“She remembers things no one else could.” Tony’s hands hover over Nick’s, then drop along with his voice. “My mother calling me _bambino_. Other things, you- you have to talk with her.”

Fury stays silent. The fire makes a particularly loud crack and Natasha determinedly doesn’t flinch as she walks into his line of sight.

He looks down at the ground with a face that could almost be called blank.

“Uncle Fury,” she says, and it comes out evenly, so much so that it surprises her. “I know you don’t have much reason to believe it’s- me. But if you listen for just a few minutes-”

“Do you know how many girls have come to me with that exact speech,” Fury says, and he tips his head up. His gaze finally lands on her, and there’s a sting of gratification when his lips part and his eyes widen.

He covers it with blankness again in less than a second. “Well. You do _look_ convincing.”

“So did others.” She tries to smile.

“So did others,” Fury agrees. His jaw tenses. “You must be good, convincing Tony. Only two others have been able to make him think it might have been them, _maybe_ , but he seems certain it’s you. No doubt in his head. And your young man there-”

Fury gestures towards James, who is standing in the corner with his arms folded tight across his chest. “Went so far as to kidnap me to prove it was you.”

“I didn’t _kidnap_ you,” James mutters.

Fury snorts. “Kid yanked my driver out of his seat as he was getting in, then got in himself and started zipping around corners so fast I couldn’t jump out unless I wanted broken bones.”

Natasha looks over at James, who meets her eyes for about a second before swallowing and looking at the floor.

Gratitude wells up before she remembers the reward. The big reward they did this for in the first place, the one that will set them up for life even if Steve and James split it in half.

She looks towards Fury again. “He’s not my young man,” she says, and then allows: “He’s very determined.”

“Determined to get money out of an old man,” Fury says.

Tony sighs. “Nick. Just give her ten minutes.”

Fury turns and eyeballs him with his one good eye. Then his shoulders sag in a way that wouldn’t be noticeable unless you looked closely.

“Five,” he says, and nods towards Tony.

Natasha waits as the three boys move from the room. Then, slowly, she sits back down on the couch as Fury comes over and sits in the place Tony had been before- a cushion away.

He looks her up and down, lingering on the necklace she has, for once, left outside her clothes for the world to see. “You really are the most convincing one yet,” he admits.

Natasha smiles. “Yes.”

It’s not the answer he was expecting, judging by the look he gives her. “Tony told me about your past- or what you claim it was, anyway. How you escaped, your lack of memories since then, how you’ve been getting some of them back since you’ve been meeting people from your past.”

Natasha dips her head in a nod. “I’ve remembered more in a few months than I have in- since I woke up in the snow.”

He can’t seem to look at her for more than a few seconds. To himself, he says, “The fucking gall of some people,” and hangs his head. When he brings it up again, he says, “You have the necklace. Or something like it.”

“I have the necklace,” Natasha says, and reaches up to take it off. She pulls it lightly over her head and holds it out, and that’s when she notices her hands are trembling. “Sorry,” she says, clenching her fingers until they turn white with the pressure, then loosening them so the necklace is visible.

“It was to open a music box,” she tries. “You- you gave it to me for when you went away to Paris. You went away a lot, and I’d listen to the music box as a lullaby-”

“What was it?”

Her throat clicks. “The lullaby?”

“Yes.” He’s staring now, something like fear in his eye. “What was it?”

“I don’t-” She closes her eyes. “I don’t remember,” she says.

She hears him huff, hears herself say, “No, wait, don’t-”

She drags in a breath, blows it out quietly. “It had- bears,” she starts, and then, slowly, she begins to hum. The tune is slow and broken in places, and she gives up after a verse.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. There’s no reply. When she looks up, Fury’s eye is on her face. She can’t read him. She never could.

When he starts to hum, it’s smoother than her version, and it doesn’t break. It flows, smooth and almost calming, and Natasha lets her eyes slip shut.

Dancing bears… that was it. Dancing bears…

“ _Painted wings_ ,” she hears herself say, half-song, half-whisper. “ _Things I almost… remember. And a song someone sings, once upon a December-”_

It’s like her dreams are coming together into something cohesive, finally, and when Fury stops humming Natasha’s eyes fly open in panic.

He’s staring at her with his good eye. His expression isn’t hard anymore, but it’s not soft either, instead it’s on the verge of giving way: he breathes in shakily and starts to sing in low, quiet tones.

“ _Someone holds me safe and warm_ ,” Fury starts, and Natasha melts into a smile as she continues, joining her Uncle’s voice. He pauses for her slow, halting lyrics as she pulls them from her memories: “ _Someone holds me safe and warm. Horses prance through a silver storm-”_

The lyrics catch on fragmented memories that are so faint they could be dreams: arms around her, squeezing just tight enough. Small arms, hands that belong to children smaller than her, and then bigger arms and perfume.

A kiss pressed to her forehead and his stubble is scratchy but it’s a welcome itch.

Horses pulling carriages, boring rides that she complains about until her sister sits on her and she yells and pinches her arm.

_“-Figures dancing gracefully, across my memory-”_

Dancing. Yes, of course: she has been taught the dances, she knew the steps like she knew how to draw breath, her father used to pick her up and carry her around the ballroom, tickle her face with her own hair and laugh along with her. Uncle Fury was there more than once, he taught her a dance when she was very small, what was it, the steps were short and simple-

 _“-far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember, things my heart used to know_ -”

It’s difficult to look into his face and see his eye fill; hear his voice catch. He doesn’t finish the line, instead his voice breaks into a gasp. “Shit,” he says, lowering his head. “ _Shit_.”

He reaches up and touches the necklace, which she still has cupped in her hands. His thumb presses around the smooth metal edges of it, then over the lettering: _together in paris_.

 _Together in Paris_ , Natasha thinks as he looks back up. _We made it, Uncle_.

“You-” Natasha’s breath rasps as she tries to come up with more. “You’d let me ride on your shoulders and you taught me how to punch even when mother got cross with you for it. That scar on my wrist, I got it when I put my hand through a window, I ran to you and you ripped off a bit of curtain and tied it around the cut-”

“Anastasia,” Fury says, and it’s enough to squeeze the words entirely from her lungs. The name still sounds- wrong, somehow, but when Fury- her _uncle_ \- says it, it sounds a lot less like an alias she’s crafted to wear at will.

She blinks hard. Her eyes are wet. “I’m- yes. It’s me, I came back. To you. Uncle, I-”

He grabs her shoulder almost too hard, and this time when he looks her up and down it’s with disbelief and badly-concealed joy and- finally- recognition.

“Shit,” he says again, and she lets out a laugh that comes out watery.

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

He shakes his head, slow and then faster. “Not your fault. You didn’t- you didn’t remember. You- god, it’s _you_. It’s really you,” he says, and then he’s pulling her close.

She digs her nose into his neck and clings in a way that she hasn’t done since waking up in the snow.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha excuses herself not long after they drop their arms from each other. She puts her hands behind her back to hide how they’ve started to shake.

She makes herself smile. If she seems jittery, she has a good reason for it. “I need some air,” she says, and has to close her eyes for a moment as she thinks of James.

“Of course,” Fury says. He’s still staring at her in disbelief, but it’s warmer now.

Natasha walks into the hall. She had visited here so her mother and Tony’s could spend time together, but where had her family stayed when they came to Paris? She can’t remember. There are more memories than ever, but so much is still missing.

Her pace quickens until she finds a door and she heads into the garden, barely managing to close the door behind her before she sinks down into the grass. She presses her back into the wall and clutches her knees.

It’s her. She had suspected until she was almost certain, and but even when she was certain there was always a level of disbelief. She has distant memories of fine china and lace, but they feel like a dream. The things in front of her- dirt and stolen goods; a moving train she had to jump off to escape the police; a rich man she had to charm to worm her way into his flat- those felt more real than the memories. How could she be Russia’s lost princess when she’d spent the last decade and a half living in hovels and stealing for food?

It’s only when her palm starts to sting that she realizes she’s clutching her necklace. Together in Paris. They made it, finally, but everyone else is dead. Her sisters, her little brother, her parents and the servants- long gone, put in a cellar and shot like dogs.

The dogs-

Natasha closed her eyes. In the depths of her memories she can hear pained yelps which trickle into whimpers. They killed the dogs too. This was after the gunshots. What had they done to the dogs, if not shot them? Clubbed them with the butts of their guns until they finally, mercifully stilled? What the fuck did the palace dogs do to Russia?

 _What did we do,_ Natasha thinks. Her parents made sense, she understood why they thought they had to kill them. But the rest of them- their children, the servants- what was the point of that other than to stamp out every last trace of Romanov?

“You missed a spot,” Natasha says to herself. It jerks a laugh out of her, sharp and painful.

Something drips into her lap. She frowns and looks down only to see another drip, and it’s then that she notices the wetness on her face. Damn.

She reaches up and wipes her cheeks clean. _You knew not to hope you had a family_ , she thinks _. And once you started thinking about Anastasia, you knew it even more. This happened more than ten years ago. You knew what you were getting into_.

She had often believed that she would be okay with whatever had happened before she lost her memory; she just wanted to know. She didn’t believe that anymore. She wanted the blank void that used to be her past, the vague, barely-there shape of it.

Now it was coming back, finally- every week made it more solid. Maybe one day she would remember all of it.

The idea made her panic. She didn’t want to remember any more than she already did- she didn’t want the faded knowledge of her sisters, of what her little brother’s laugh sounded like. She didn’t want to know her mother’s favourite tea, the comforting scent of her perfume, the nicknames her father gave to the servants. She wanted them vague and dreamlike, not getting more real by the hour- if they got any more real, she wouldn’t be able to stop the grief.

“God.” It escapes her throat before she can stop it; the word breaking in the middle. Her family, her life, the girl she used to be- they were better off forgotten. Remembering them is only making her wish she had been down in the cellar with the rest of her family.

There’s a soft knock on the door behind her. Natasha wipes at her face again and stands, turning to see Steve looking at her cautiously as he opens the door.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine.” Natasha feels herself smile automatically.

The worry doesn’t fade from Steve’s face. “Must be a lot to handle.”

She stays silent. It’s all she can do to keep her smile from shaking.

Steve says, “I’m sure Fury would understand if you needed a break.”

“Yes,” she says. It’s more so she has something to say than anything else, but it lights an old idea in her mind. “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

She shouldn’t ask. She could always deal with it herself, like always, but Steve is standing there so dear and trustworthy that she asks anyway.

“What if I didn’t want to stay here?”

Steve blinks. “You mean live somewhere else,” he says, but there’s the beginning of understanding in his eyes. “I’m sure Fury would let you, he wouldn’t be expecting-”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Steve’s throat clicks. His eyes track her face and Natasha wonders if he’s remembering their conversations from months and months ago, when they had discussed if she would want to drop back into obscurity after getting a fortune from Anastasia’s last living relative.

“You’d have to tell Fury,” is all that Steve comes out with.

“Yes. I wouldn’t want-” She stops and wets her lips. “I want to know him. I don’t want to lose my last-”

She stops again, her voice cracking embarrassingly. When Steve reaches out, she jerks minutely away from his touch and continues, “I’d keep in contact. I just, I need some time. Away from here.”

Steve crosses his arms in that way he does when he doesn’t want to start fiddling with something. “Would you be coming back?”

Natasha wants to say yes. Why wouldn’t she? She found her family, finally. Even if it’s just Fury, she remembers loving him. She could love him again, if she let herself.

She thinks of France, of traveling like she’s always done, never staying anywhere long. Sleeping where she can- maybe she could have a stipend from Fury, maybe it wouldn’t involve sleeping in empty houses. She could get hotel rooms instead, and eat fine food, and live in comfort if not luxury. It sounds- oddly lonely.

She flashes back to the last few months- when she travelled, it was with Steve and James at her side. It was… nice. Better than nice. It felt like regaining something half-remembered and precious; or perhaps making it anew.

“Talk to Fury about it,” Steve says. Then he pauses. “Hey, uh. Tony and me, we were talking about going on a holiday to- celebrate. You could come along, if you want.”

Equal parts inside Natasha balk and warm at the same time. Solitude is familiar and safe. But-

“What about James?”

She regrets it as soon as she says it. By Steve’s expression, he notices.

“He’s still thinking things over,” Steve says.

Natasha opens her mouth, unsure what she’s going to say- _can I talk to him_ \- but Steve talks over her before she can ask. “Uh, he left a few minutes ago- he’s staying at a hotel. Won’t let Tony pay for it, even.”

Natasha nods and pretends she isn’t equal parts disappointed and relieved. “Will he,” she starts, and then stops. She tries again. “He won’t go back to Russia, surely.”

Steve shakes his head. “It’s home, but no. Best to stay away, at least until things- change for the better.”

Natasha can’t imagine it. “Right.”

Steve gives a tight little smile and starts to turn away. “Well, I’ll let you-”

“Steve,” she says. When he turns back, she has to clear her throat to get it out: “You’re a good friend. Better than I deserve.”

Steve stares at her. His smile turns pleased. “Hey, only the best for the princess-”

He even starts to give a joking bow, but stops when Natasha snaps, “Don’t.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, straightening, but Natasha’s already shaking her head.

“It’s fine. It’s fine. I should- get used to it. For when I come back.”

Steve nods slowly. Natasha thinks he’s going to turn away again, but instead he says, “When you do get back, you should let Bucky know. Wherever he is, he’ll want to know. Even if he isn’t- around, you can write him or something.”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say to that, so she nods.

Steve gives her another look. This time he really does turn around, just in time to see Fury coming down the hall. “Sir!”

“Rogers,” Fury says, glancing at him before looking towards Natasha. He stops before he can come out the door. “How’re you doing, Anya?”

Natasha flinches. Right. It had been her nickname.

Fury seems to notice. He opens his mouth again, but Natasha cuts him off.

“Uncle,” she says. “We should talk.”

 

 

 

 

-  


 

 

 

( _There’s a boy with big brown eyes that match his hair. He’s saying something. What is he saying? There’s blood dripping into his eye from a cut above his eyebrow. He keeps wiping it away and he’s still saying something._

_Natasha stares up at him and tries to make it out. He’s whispering, but his tone is urgent. His words stumble and then blur together into nonsense._

_What are you saying, Natasha tries to ask him, but her mouth doesn’t move. She never asked that when it happened._

_The boy keeps talking. He reaches down for her. His eyes, like the hand that closes around hers, are very gentle.)_

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

  
  
Natasha wakes up in one of the spare bedrooms in Fury’s room from a dream that has been more reoccurring than ever, lately.

It’s not the first time she’s woken up since going to bed. But it is finally late enough in the morning- still early, with the sun barely risen- to get up.

She showers and puts on her clothes- not the long, slinky dress Tony had given to her to wear to the ballet, which she had worn on the ride to Fury’s house last night, but her own clothes, which have been mended many times over and don’t fit like they should.

She turns on the tap, which is gleaming and golden, and eyes her tattered gloves. They are comfortable and familiar and utterly out of place with the décor in the bathroom. She eyes her reflection next: clean, but not neat. She brushes her hair into place and tries to feel anything close to herself, then leaves in search of breakfast.

There’s a while left before Jarvis will arrive to pick her up. Arrangements had been made last night after Natasha had talked to Fury- he’d called Tony and didn’t look at Natasha until the phone call was over.

 _A car will come to take you to the train station at 9 in the morning_ , Fury told her.

 _Thank you_ , she had said. It hadn’t felt like enough, so she had reached out and squeezed the hand that wasn’t still resting on the phone. I know this must be- that is, you just got me back-

 _I did_ , he had said. He kept his eyes on the phone, but he did lift his hand from it and cover hers where it lay on his other hand. _And I understand why you need to do this. Just- come back, all right?_

 _I will,_ she had promised. She had meant it. She still means it. She doesn’t have many- if any- people she loves, and in this man she keeps catching glimpses of her uncle. He’s older, wearier, but still very much there. If only she could remember more of him.

Natasha opens the cupboards. They’re neat and strangely sparse for someone so rich. Still, there’s more choice in food than Natasha’s had in 15 years, so she heads to the fridge to see what her options are. There are a rainbow of vegetables which she zeroes in on. And even better, there’s meat- chicken breast, and it’s fresh. Her mouth waters. She hasn’t had a decent cut of meat in as long as she can remember. She’s been living off of canned meat, which has about as much flavour as a paper, and the occasional wild dog, which is so thin that she barely gets enough useable meat to make into jerky.

It’s breakfast, but she can’t turn the meat down. She takes the chicken out of the fridge and sets it on the counter, then turns to examine the stove. She’s always cooked meat over open fires, but she’s sure she can navigate a stove. Then she heads back to the cupboard and stands on her tiptoes to retrieve a slab of bread, which is also impossibly fresher than anything she’s eaten lately.

She cuts two slices from it, sets them on the counter next to the chicken and then looks in the drawers until she finds a pan. It doesn’t look like the kind for frying- she has fuzzy memories of barging in on the cooks in the palace, one of whom mentioned the importance of different kinds of pans- but she can make do.

Twenty minutes later, Natasha sits down with a burned thumb, slightly singed hair and a chicken sandwich that drips with lettuce, tomatoes and grease. There are some other vegetables in there, too, some of which Natasha doesn’t know the name of but liked the texture and taste when she tried them as the chicken cooked. All of this makes her strain to fit the sandwich into her mouth, but she manages. Some of the flavours clash- she had gotten too excited when it came to adding condiments, there’s butter and some kind of spread that is strangely tangy- but it’s still the best thing she’s tasted in over a decade.

“Glad to see you’re making yourself at home.”

Natasha’s eyes open. She’d closed them at some point during the second bite, lost in the decadence of good food.

Fury smiles at her from the doorway. It’s not a grin, but it’s close to it, and it makes her smile back automatically, something old and almost forgotten rising with her lips.

“Sorry,” she says after she’s swallowed her mouthful. She glances over her shoulder at the sink- it’s not too bad, with the pan and a knife, but the counter is still strewn with crumbs and vegetable scraps she hasn’t gotten around to cleaning up.

He shakes his head. “Must’ve been a while since you’ve had a good meal.”

She doesn’t know if he means her getting decent food or just enough food, but both are correct. She nods and takes another bite.

He slices two pieces from the loaf Natasha got out beforehand, then slots them into an electric toaster. Natasha eyes it in distant interest as he comes to sit down at the table with her.

“If I’m honest,” Fury starts, “you leaving for a while might be the best idea. That way we can prepare for your reappearance- get ready for the backlash, increase security.”

Natasha thinks about saying _you’re welcome,_ but decides against it and nods instead. “You’ll keep me updated?”

“Of course.”

They sit in a silence that is oddly comfortable until the toast pops. Fury glances at it, but doesn’t get up. He turns his gaze to Natasha as she’s busy sticking her wet finger to the plate to get at the crumbs.

“You went through a lot in those missing years.”

It’s not a question. Natasha wipes the crumbs from her fingers so she doesn’t have to meet his eyes.

“You hold yourself like a fighter when you think nobody’s looking,” Fury explains. “And there’s something about your face.”

Fury is a fighter, too. He’d been a solider once- he had a uniform that he kept locked away. When Natasha finally looks into his face, Fury’s expression is one of understanding.

“I had to learn how to hold my ground,” she says. She tips her head towards him. “I punched very well, though I couldn’t remember how I knew how to.”

Fury laughs quietly. It’s more of a breath than anything- his laughs were rare and whenever she coaxed one out of him she had considered it a victory. “You’re welcome.”

Natasha watches his good eye crinkle around the edges. _It didn’t all leave,_ she wants to say. _My muscles remembered, even when I didn’t. Sometimes I’d catch a certain scent and smiled when I didn’t know why. Sometimes I’d get this overwhelming grief for what I thought was no reason. I missed them, and I missed you, even when I didn’t know you existed_ -

But Fury gets up for his toast and Natasha stays silent. She goes back to picking crumbs off her plate as Fury scrapes butter- real butter- onto both slices of bread, then sits down back in his seat.

He slides one of the pieces of toast onto her plate. She looks up at him to see him looking out the kitchen window, unconcerned.

Natasha is still smiling when she bites into the toast. She doesn’t thank him and he doesn’t say anything about it, but even so, there’s a warm kinship that fills the space between them as the both of them eat their toast.

As Fury finishes his last crust, he says, “That boy who brought me to Tony’s house.”

Natasha’s mouthful goes down in a hard lump. “He’s hardly a boy. He’s nearly thirty.”

Fury gives her a look she doesn’t want to decode and continues, “I want to give him the reward. Rogers, too. I got to talk to him last night before we left, but the other man left before I could. He got you out of Russia?”

Natasha levels her voice carefully. “He helped, yes.”

“Rogers mentioned they weren’t sure it was you at first. That you were going to try a con on me.”

Natasha wonders if she should feel guilty. “Yes.”

Fury finishes his toast and brushes his fingers free of crumbs. “I’d be pissed off, but I saw how the guy reacted as he drove me over to you. That wasn’t someone desperate to finish a con.”

 _He’s a good man_. Natasha keeps this behind her teeth as she chews and swallows.

“So I think he deserves at least a partial of the reward I offered for your safe return,” Fury says. “Any idea where I can find him?”

“You’ll have to ask Steve.”

Fury nods. “What’s his name?”

“James Barnes. Um, Bucky. He likes being called Bucky.” Mostly true. Suddenly all Natasha can think of is him saying that _James_ sounded right when she said it.

When she chances a look at Fury, his gaze is too knowing for her liking. But all he says is, “Well, time’s getting on. Would you like more toast?”

Natasha considers. She’s very full, but- “Yes.”

He gives her another rare, treasured laugh before getting up.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Natasha finds herself sad to leave when Jarvis pulls up at 9.

“I’ll write,” she promises Fury as she hugs him goodbye. The hug lasts for a long time, which seems to make both of them uncomfortable as they pull apart.

“You’d better,” Fury agrees. He pins her with a look. “I never asked- do you prefer being called Natasha or Anastasia?”

 _Natasha_. It sticks to the roof of her mouth, but eventually she gets it out. “I’m sorry,” is what she follows it with.

He shakes his head. “It’s been your name longer than Anastasia was,” he says, and it’s only slightly sad. He squeezes her shoulders with his big hands and surveys her like he’s trying to memorize her face. “Jesus,” he says, and then he doesn’t say anything else for several long seconds.

She lets him look. Finally he says, “Seeing you- the woman you’ve become. It’s…”

He trails off and she’s nodding before she realizes it. “I know,” she tells him. “It’s- seeing you, too, Uncle, it’s-”

But she can’t finish, either. Fury swallows and drops his hands after giving her shoulders one last squeeze, reaching up briefly to wipe at his face. “You’d better go. Train won’t wait.”

They share one last smile before he goes back inside. She picks up her bag and turns to the street, and is just out of the driveway when someone appears beside her.

“You are really convincing, you know. But you _do_ know.”

Rumlow. Natasha bites back a curse. He doesn’t touch her, but he comes up into her space and looms.

His eyes roam her face like Fury’s just did, but they hold none of the warmth that Fury had. His gaze is cold and dangerous.

“Best one yet,” he says.

Natasha’s grip tightens on her bag. Jarvis’ car is about ten seconds’ walk away. She’s already calculating escape routes- she could bring her knee up into his groin and then make a run for it-

But he’s not attacking yet. She can stall for now. She turns her lips up into a smile.

“Good to see you again, officer.”

His eyebrows raise. He huffs a laugh. “Yeah, you’re good. I bet you knew just what to say. Fury’s never let one of you stay a night.”

“Well, like you said, I’m very good.”

He doesn’t react. He’s still eyeing her up like he’s searching for something. “I knew Anastasia when we were kids,” Rumlow says finally. “In that last year when they were in Yekaterinburg. We lived close to them. I came over to their house once or twice. One of those times Anya and me, we got into a tree-climbing contest. I won, but only because a branch broke and she fell. Broke her bone from it- nasty break. I remember it sticking out of her arm, just below her elbow.”

He grips her arm and every bit of Natasha gears up to kick his balls into his body.

“Let go,” she warns.

He jerks her sleeve up. It’s a hard motion and it makes Natasha drop her bag. A small mess spills out over the sidewalk.

Rumlow ignores it, turning her arm. Natasha glances down as he sees it: the short, wiry scar that sat in the crook of her arm that faded over a decade ago.

Rumlow swears quietly. His eyes are very round as they meet hers again. “It’s really you, then,” he says, and he smiles. It’s not a nice smile. “Anastasia.”

“Let go,” Natasha repeats, softer this time, but no less forceful.

Rumlow shakes his head like an afterthought.

“Princess,” he says.

His other hand starts towards his belt, where his gun is strapped into it-

Natasha twists out of his grip and uses the momentum to push him away, then she kicks him in the back of the knee while he’s trying to regain his footing. He cries out and falls to that knee just in time for Natasha to bring her elbow down on his neck so he goes sprawling onto the sidewalk.

She scoops as much of her clothes into the bag as she can, makes sure she has her train tickets, then sprints for the car, where Jarvis is in the middle of getting out.

“Should I-”

“Drive,” she snaps at him.

He does, and is pulling into the street and driving at a speed that is definitely not legal when Natasha sees Rumlow pulling himself up off the ground in the back mirror.

“I take it we aren’t stopping by Mr. Barnes’ hotel anymore,” Jarvis says.

Natasha blinks. Right- when Fury had given her the phone last night, she had mentioned to Jarvis that she wanted to say goodbye to James before she left. Jarvis said he could drive her to the hotel he was staying at.

Natasha looks into the rear-view mirror. They’re a street away from Rumlow now, but-

“No,” she says. “It wouldn’t be safe. Best to head straight for the station.”

Jarvis nods. “Would you like me to tell him anything, then?”

 _See you later_ , maybe. That would hint at it- she wants to see him again. She sorely, desperately wants to see him again, for their last meeting to not be their last- she wants to talk to him, to ask if her being Anastasia is really something that will separate them for good, to ask what the hell he said when they were children and he took her hand-

His eyes had been so gentle; are still so gentle. Lately she’s been thinking that perhaps he didn’t alert the guards about her after all.

 _I shouldn’t see him again_ , Natasha doesn’t say.

“No,” is what comes out. “Don’t tell him anything.”

Jarvis gives a curt nod and Natasha bites her lips against the tirade of things she wants to leave James with, the questions she wants answered, the things she wants resolved- they can wait. And if not, if James disappears and she never sees him again, then she’s likely better off for it.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Bucky leaves for Fury’s place as soon as he gets the phone call. He walks there, despite Fury offering to have someone pick him up from the hotel.

“To thank you for the impromptu ride last night,” Fury had added dryly, and Bucky had forced a laugh.

It still early when he arrives, and he shrugs off his coat as he gets to the door. The sun is rising in the sky and the walk has warmed him enough that he doesn’t need the second layer.

He raises his hand to the door, then hesitates. What if Natasha answers? What if he runs into her while he’s talking to Fury? What the hell is he going to say?

He thinks about it, fingers rubbing together absently as he forms a fist to knock on the door.

 _Glad things worked out for both of us_. There. That sounds… final. And casual. And just true enough to hide the shit he really wants to say to her, which would be too embarrassing to say in front of Fury or even out loud at all.

He knocks. He holds his breath.

The door opens. It’s Fury. Bucky lets out his breath.

“Hello, Sir.”

“Barnes,” Fury says. He steps back and away. “Come in.”

Bucky does. He pockets his hands and tries to look unthreatening- Fury isn’t being as hostile as he’d expected, but that could turn on a dime. Last night Bucky had nearly gotten his ass kicked.

He eyes Fury’s muscles as he gets lead into the living room. They’re hidden by layers of clothing, but Bucky knows they’re there. For a sixty year old, Fury can throw one hell of a punch.

Fury sits down on a couch that looks like it costs more than any place Bucky has ever lived in. Bucky stays standing.

“How’re the ribs,” Fury asks.

Bucky shrugs. The movement twinges his abdomen: his ribs are still tender from where Fury had shoved the point of his elbow into them after getting out of the car outside Tony’s place.

“They’re doing fine,” Bucky says. Then he cuts to the chase, because Natasha could walk in at any minute: “You wanted to speak to me?”

Fury nods. “I did,” he says. Then he reaches over to a drawer next to the couch and opens the bottom one, pulling out a tiny suitcase. “I wanted to give you your reward.”

For a moment Bucky doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Then Fury opens the case and Bucky nearly swallows his tongue: with that money he could buy a thousand of the couches Fury is sitting on.

“Ah,” Bucky manages.

Fury clicks it closed and holds it out to him. “Since your friend already turned it down over the phone, you now get the total amount of the reward.”

Bucky thinks he’s meant to say something. _Thank you_ would probably be best.

His good hand twitches towards the case, but stops just before touching the smooth material of it. If he takes that case, he could live like a king. If not a king, then he could live the rest of his life in a comfort that he lost almost twenty years ago. He’d never go to bed hungry again. He could buy clothes that kept him warm all year around and pay to have them fixed.

It feels like a siren’s call. It’s everything he’s been struggling for since he was a kid. And still-

The hand that hovers over the case curls into a fist, then lowers back to his side.

Fury eyes him. “Something wrong?”

Bucky’s throat clicks. He shakes his head. “No. No, it’s just-”

He can’t stop thinking of Natasha- Anastasia- _Natasha_ , with her keen eyes that see everything; her strong stance and gaze and walk that can turn graceful or seductive in a heartbeat. The changeability of her, and under it the constant, quiet presence that is Natasha, the real one that sits under the layers of fakes that she lines up for when she needs them. The neatness of how she eats and how she crosses her legs and lights a fire. The way the fire, sometimes the only flicker of light in the hollowed out palace, would cast shadows over her face during princess lessons that turned out to be a series of re-learning things she once knew.

Her smile, hard-won and small when it was genuine, beautiful even when it wasn’t. After a while he had learned to tell the difference and prided himself on coaxing her real smiles much more than her faked ones. Her laugh, short and sharp or loud and surprised, both of which had knocked him on his ass every time they came. Her hand tucking hair behind her ears, her mouth forming French.

Natasha in his arms when they had danced; the warmth of her against him. Natasha looking out the window of a train; Natasha carefully schooling the distrust out of the expression when she looked at him. The involuntary fondness she had schooled out of her expression also.

“I can’t take it,” Bucky says. When he looks at Fury, the man is impassive.

“You can’t,” Fury repeats, and it’s not quite a question.

Bucky shakes his head. “No, sir. Thank you for- offering.”

Fury snorts. “Well. You and your friend are the noblest bunch of thieves I’ve ever met.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything.

Fury places the case beside him on the couch. “So. Why the change of mind?”

Bucky considers. “It was… more of a change of heart,” he says, and it feels too raw and true in the space between him and this man he’s only met once before, a man who tried to attack him several times.

Fury watches his face for a second. Then he says, “Did she say something to you this morning?”

Bucky turns that over in his head. When it continues not to make sense, he says, “What?”

“Anast- Natasha,” Fury says. “She said she was going to stop by your hotel on the way to the station this morning.”

Bucky swallows. “The station?”

“The train station,” Fury says slowly, like he’s talking to a concussed person.

Bucky’s abdomen clenches. This time it’s not from the bruised ribs. “She’s leaving?”

“For a while,” Fury says. “She’s coming back.” He tilts his wrist and checks his watch. “Well, even if she did stop by your motel, she should’ve done it before I called. She should be at the station by now, the train leaves soon.”

“Oh,” Bucky says weakly. Distantly, he wonders if she’s making a break for it while she still can- maybe she’s taken Fury’s money and is in the middle of bolting. It doesn’t sound like her, or at least not like the woman he’s come to know her to be, but-

“Barnes?”

Bucky tunes back in and realizes that he’s been staring ahead at nothing for a while. “Sorry. Right. I’ll- I’ll go. Thanks again.”

He tries for a smile and then leaves. Fury doesn’t call him back or even get up, and Bucky is left in shaky silence as he closes the front door behind him.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath inwards. Shit. Okay. This is- fine. This was always one of the ways it could turn out and he knew it.

 _She’s coming back_ , whispers his traitorous mind. _You could stick around and wait for her. She was coming to tell you goodbye-_

_That doesn’t mean anything._

_You don’t know that!_

_Shut up_. Bucky presses his good hand over his face, takes another breath. Then he heads down the driveway with as much dignity he can muster.

This is all shoved out the window when someone grabs him from behind after he’s taken a few steps out onto the sidewalk.

“ _Hey_ -” Bucky twists out of the grip and whirls around. “What-”

He stops. In front of him, Rumlow’s face is flushed. His hair falls over his forehead.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Rumlow says, eyes tracking his. His shoulders are squared and Bucky tries this time to make himself don’t-fuck-with-me enough as to not invite an attack, before modifying it into tight surprise.

“Me neither,” Bucky says. Okay, could’ve been better-

“Did you know it’s really her?”

Bucky blinks. “What?” Shit, okay, Rumlow _knows_. They already thought he knew, but now he definitely knows, or thinks he does-

“I ran into her not long ago,” Rumlow says. “And it’s her, James, she has that scar from when she fell out of a tree.”

Bucky tries to calm his galloping heartbeat. “A lot of people have scars.”

Rumlow shakes his head. It’s too fast; his blood is pumping too hard for Bucky’s liking. “Not like this. This one’s distinctive, it’s in the exact place- and it’s _her_. You knew her better when we were kids, did you _know_?”

Bucky weighs his chances. Rumlow has a gun. Rumlow has authority over him even though they’re not in Russia.

“No,” Bucky says quickly. “I didn’t- I thought it was just a really good con. You’re sure?”

Rumlow’s starting to smile. It looks manic, but not the kind of manic that means he’s disorganized, which would suit Bucky better. “I’m sure. Come on, let’s go.”

Bucky startles as Rumlow turns around, stalking down the street. He follows, starting to ask, “Where are we-”

“She’s headed to the train station,” Rumlow says, and Bucky thinks _shitshitshit_.

“I saw her tickets,” Rumlow continues.

 _You’re going to kill her_. Bucky doesn’t say it. He feels like that wouldn’t help him right now. But he knows Rumlow isn’t thinking about bringing her back to Russia- there’s a fevered light in his eyes that hints at bloodlust. Rumlow thinks killing the servants and dogs wasn’t overkill. He thinks killing the children was just, and he’s eager to finish off the one who got away.

“How are we getting there,” Bucky says instead.

Rumlow turns to him just enough to flash him a grin. “I have a car down the street. I’ve been tailing her since last night.”

“Good work,” Bucky says, at a loss of what the hell else to say.

Another grin from Rumlow, who is hurrying around the side of a car. Bucky heads to the passenger’s side and climbs in.

 _Please_ , he tells the universe as the car shudders to life _. Make it so the train has already left with her on it._

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Rumlow swears under his breath for most of the way to the station. Otherwise, he seems oddly composed: he doesn’t fidget, his back stays ramrod straight and his gaze is focused as he goes over the speed limit just enough not to attract attention.

“You should train to be an officer when you get back,” Rumlow says as they’re getting close.

Bucky looks at him. Rumlow thinks he’s going back to Russia. Right. “Is it difficult?”

“As difficult as anything else,” Rumlow says. He breathes out through his nose very slowly as someone cuts him off.

Bucky watches the road. How does he get himself into these situations?

“I don’t have another gun,” Rumlow says. “But tell me if you see her. You can fight, yeah?”

“I can fight.”

“Good. So can she.” Rumlow shifts in a way that makes Bucky think he caught glimpses of that talent before running into Bucky. “Don’t underestimate her.”

 _I’ve spent the last few months with her_ , Bucky thinks. _I’m well aware what a mistake it is to think she’s anything other than dangerous._

Out loud, he says, “Got it.”

Rumlow’s breathing is getting louder. Slower and louder. Bucky doesn’t think Rumlow notices.

“So, you’re-” Bucky pauses, tries to figure out the best way to put it. “I mean, you won’t just kill her in the middle of a crowded train station, right?”

“What? Of course not. That would attract the wrong kind of attention. We’ll subdue her, drive her somewhere deserted and shoot her there.”

“Uh-huh.” Bucky determinedly doesn’t imagine it: Natasha struggling, snarling, running- oh god, running, her hair a bright flash against the landscape, Rumlow raising his gun and firing and Natasha falling to the ground and not getting up, not ever, this time for good-

Bucky clears his throat. “Hey. Don’t you think we should just- bring her in?”

Rumlow jerks a look over at him before turning back to the road. “Bring her in?”

“Yeah. To Russia.”

“What’d be the point in that? She’ll die here just the same.” Another look. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft on me. That woman has had months of worming into your head, I’m sure she tried to make herself… appealing. But she’s not who you thought she was.”

Bucky blows out a breath as quietly as he can. “No, I’m- I just think it’d make a better example if she was executed in front of the Russian people. But I won’t stop you if you want to put her down here.”

He doesn’t meet Rumlow’s eyes, but he can feel Rumlow’s gaze boring into the side of his face.

“Good,” is all Rumlow says.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Rumlow didn’t catch what train she was on, but he did get a glimpse of the time: 11.30am, which is 15 minutes away.

They head to the platform where the trains leave from. There’s a thick crowd, which gets Bucky’s hopes up: maybe she’ll see them coming and have time to get away. He’ll try to give her that time if it comes to it.

Which it quickly does: Bucky catches sight of telltale red hair, a scrap of it, mostly hidden, less than two minutes into searching. He hopes distantly that it isn’t her, but then her head turns to check the clock and he sees the familiar face he thinks he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to forget.

Natasha’s tied a brown scarf around her head. His chest pangs for her- she would’ve done it after confronting Rumlow. She’s goddamn smart and just as resourceful and he’s going to miss her like hell.

He checks beside him. Rumlow is busy scanning the crowd in the opposite direction, and when he turns to the side of the crowd Natasha is on, Bucky clears his throat.

“I think I saw her over there,” he tries, pointing in the direction Natasha isn’t.

Rumlow starts to turn to follow Bucky’s finger, but it’s too late. His eyes catch and hold, then narrow.

Bucky’s heart sinks. He’s looking where Natasha is. If he turns himself, he’s sure he’ll be able to see that brown scarf tied around her lovely face.

“Got her,” Rumlow says sharply. He starts pushing through the crowd and Bucky follows, desperately hoping she’ll look up and see them before they get close. But they get ever closer and Natasha doesn’t look at them, and Rumlow is a few people ahead of Bucky even as he tries to shove closer.

 _Look at us_ , he thinks as he stares at the side of her head. _Look at us and fucking run_ -

Bucky pushes and _excuse-me’s_ himself as fast as he can, but he only gets there in time to hear Rumlow say, “Try to fight and I’ll shoot a hole through your stomach, princess.”

 _Fuck_ , Bucky mouths. He pushes past the last person and there she is, right in front of him, pressed up to him and Rumlow thanks to the crowd. She’s staring at Rumlow, but as soon as Bucky gets close her gaze turns to him. Her eyes widen, her lips thinning.

Bucky only just stops himself from telling her it’s fine, he’s on her side, because Rumlow is pressed up against them both.

“Walk,” Rumlow says.

Natasha stares at Bucky, who struggles against everything he is not to comfort her.

Rumlow starts to move through the crowd, standing at Natasha’s side, gripping her arm with one hand and holding a gun to her back with the other.

Bucky stands at her other side. Shit. Okay. _Shit_. What can he do? Does he concentrate on getting Nat out or letting her know he’s on her side so they can plan something together through- head movements or meaningful eye contact, or something? God knows she’s already got a million plans running through that big head of hers.

She looks straight ahead as she’s led out of the train station. She won’t look at Bucky.

Bucky mouths _fuck_ again, not a secret signal to anything, just an overflow of stress. He reaches down and takes her hand with his good one.

Natasha startles; a barely-there thing that Bucky only notices because he’s staring. Rumlow is too busy holding her and looking ahead of them.

Bucky squeezes her hand, then uses his thumb to trace the letters: A-M-W-I-T-H-Y-O-U.

Natasha shows no sign that she’s noticed, but she presses her lips together even tighter. When Bucky drops her hand, she links her pinkie with his for a split second, squeezing hard before letting go.

Bucky holds back a strained smile. Okay. In this together, then.

They head towards the car. Bucky wonders if Natasha’s actually going to get in- he wants this to all go down away from the station, where civilians can get hurt, but the longer they spend with Rumlow is more time he can decide to shoot her.

“Get in,” Rumlow says, opening the car door to the backseat. Natasha climbs in and Rumlow nods to Bucky, who sends a silent thank you to God and Jesus and everyone else. If only Rumlow would give him the gun.

Bucky slides into the backseat with Natasha, taking her arm as he settles in. “Gotta make this look convincing,” he whispers quickly, eyes on Rumlow as he walks around the car to the driver’s seat.

“Mm,” Natasha says, instead of nodding. Somehow, through the impossible stress of the situation, Bucky misses her enough that it gets his chest hurting through his bruised ribs.

All Bucky can do is stroke Natasha’s arm with his fingers, and even then he can only do it to the skin behind her arm, where his fingers are hidden from view. He’s not sure why he does it. It isn’t exactly helpful. But he wants Natasha to know she isn’t alone in this.

Rumlow gets into the driver’s seat. “Watch her,” he tells Bucky.

“Got it,” Bucky says. “Hey- you think I should have the gun?”

“What?”

“The gun,” Bucky tries. “Uh, so she won’t try anything.”

Rumlow considers this for a moment and Bucky allows himself a second of triumph before Rumlow bends down and fishes a small knife from his boot.

“Hold it to her throat,” Rumlow tells him.

Bucky doesn’t let how much he doesn’t want to do that show on his face. Instead he keeps quiet and puts the knife to the side of her throat, not pressing, just touching the blade to her skin.

Rumlow’s eyes go fleetingly to Natasha like he can’t believe their luck, before he pulls out of the train station parking lot and onto the street.

Bucky watches Natasha and the scenery in equal measure. How far away is Rumlow planning on going? Not too far, because that would give Natasha more time to escape, but surely far enough that they won’t have witnesses.

Rumlow keeps glancing into the rear-view mirror, so there’s not much chance of planning. Bucky wishes he was still holding her arm instead of a knife. After driving for what feels like eternity but can’t be- the sun isn’t too low in the sky, it can’t be long after lunchtime- Rumlow pulls over onto the side of the road. Ahead of them are rows of trees too sparse to be a forest.

“Don’t get out until I get to her side of the car,” Rumlow tells Bucky, who nods.

This time there isn’t time to share a look before Rumlow is at Natasha’s door, opening it and taking one of her arms as she gets out of the car. He puts the muzzle of the gun to her back again.

Bucky climbs out after her. He meets her eyes and knows that yes, they’re definitely going to be making this up on the fly.

“Walk,” Rumlow says.

“Where are we going,” Natasha asks. It’s the first thing she’s said since they caught up to her and Bucky wants to bask in her voice.

“You’ll find out when you get there,” Rumlow says.

Bucky comes to the other side of her, but doesn’t hold her arm. This time he keeps hold of the knife.

They walk. Bucky’s arm bumps into Natasha’s. He hopes his touch is reassuring. The trees get thicker around them, and eventually they can’t see the car pulled over on the side of the road.

Will it be now, Bucky wonders. But they keep walking deeper into the trees until Rumlow stops. He looks around, then behind them. Then he turns back and says, “Walk over there.”

He points towards a tree a dozen feet in front of them.

Natasha turns her head minutely to Bucky, just enough that they can meet eyes.

Bucky dips his head in a small nod. He comes to stand next to Rumlow.

Natasha starts walking. She does it slowly, evenly, until she’s almost at the tree.

Bucky shifts closer to Rumlow, as close as he can without raising suspicion.

Rumlow’s comes up and Bucky’s heartbeat pounds in unison with the safety being clicked off.

Bucky moves, plunging his tiny knife into Rumlow’s wrist. It slices straight through so a sliver of metal peeks out through the other side of his wrist.

Rumlow’s bellow is immediate and pained. He lashes out at Bucky and the gun shudders from his hand at the same time. As Bucky watches it fall, he receives a punch to the face with Rumlow’s good hand, then knee to the abdomen, which explodes with pain as his bruised ribs protest the sudden inexplicable pressure.

He thinks Natasha shouts his name. He can’t be sure over the sudden ringing in his ears from the punch.

Bucky casts around wildly for the gun only to see Rumlow grab it with his good hand, pointing it at Bucky and then at Natasha in quick succession. His face turns between the two of them- Natasha is closer. Why is she closer? She should be running-

“What are you DOING,” Rumlow spits at Bucky.

Bucky wipes blood off his cheek. Rumlow is wearing a ring that split the skin.

“She’s done nothing wrong,” Bucky tells him.

Rumlow’s face twists. He points the gun towards Natasha, whose face goes from calculating to fear and then to careful blankess.

“What fucking lies did she-”

“She did _nothing wrong_ ,” Bucky yells. “They killed the fucking DOGS, Rumlow, what the fuck was the point in that? Why-”

“It was for our country,” Rumlow yells back. “You treacherous, traitorous-”

His face turns to Natasha again, and Bucky’s mouth opens on _don’t_ before he realizes he’s moving. He barrels into Rumlow just in time to hear the shot, and it’s only after he hits the ground that the pain in his shoulder kicks in.

“Fuck, shhhhh _it_ ,” Bucky chokes as it registers, but there isn’t time. Rumlow rolls on top of him, grabbing for the gun even as Bucky scrabbles for it.

His gaze catches on Natasha as Rumlow’s hand closes around it: she’s heading towards them, but she’s too far away to help-

“RUN,” Bucky shouts at her, and it has her staggering to a stop, her lips parting, her eyes widening in something that looks too much like realization- to what, Bucky doesn’t know and doesn’t much care right now, since Rumlow is struggling to sit up on top of Bucky to get enough space to shoot him.

Bucky grabs the gun before it can point at him fully. He forces the muzzle so it’s above his head and flinches when it goes off. Dirt splatters into Bucky’s hair and Bucky’s shoulder throbs, ears ringing as he imagines his own brains out all over the grass-

A blur of girl appears above them and Rumlow goes flying sideways into the grass. The gun doesn’t leave his hand, but Bucky looks beside him just in time to see Natasha twist it in his grip, force it near his face and then pull the trigger. The first shot takes off a good bit of Rumlow’s nose and he howls as blood and cartilage spray out over their faces.

Bucky gets his feet under him, moving for the two of them just as Natasha manages to get the gun completely in her own hands. She points it at Rumlow’s head again and pulls the trigger twice.

These shots are more muffled than the last few, but Bucky chalks that up to his ringing ears. He blinks and watches blood and viscera pool out of the mutilated remains of Rumlow’s face.

“Oh, shit, good job,” Bucky says, or feels himself say. He can hear it, but hazily.

Natasha turns to him. Her face is dusted in blood and there are some more fleshy bits stuck in her hair. She’s breathing hard as she pushes herself off of Rumlow, walking to Bucky fast and not quite steady.

“Are you okay,” she asks, and doesn’t bother waiting for a response before she starts examining his arm. “Sorry,” she adds when he hisses at her touch.

He lets her stare at it, twist his shoulder around for a few seconds before the worry starts bleeding out of her face.

“You’ll be fine. It didn’t hit anything important.”

He keeps staring at her, maybe too long, because she tears her gaze away from his arm and seems startled by whatever’s in his eyes.

“My arm is important,” Bucky finally gets out. “I only have the one good one and now the fucking shoulder is busted!”

“It’ll be fine once it heals.”

“What are you, a doctor?”

Natasha laughs. Bucky wishes he could hear it in all its glory, rather than the muffled shit he’s hearing now. Then her smile fades into something wondrous.

“You saved me,” she says.

He cocks his head towards Rumlow. He can’t look at him right now, he’d rather stare at Natasha’s blood-and-flesh strewn hair all day. “You saved me right back.”

She shakes her head. “No, back in Yekaterinburg- you helped me out of the house. You told me to run.”

Oh. Bucky swallows hard. “Yeah,” he croaks.

Natasha’s lips purse, then smooth out again. She starts, “I thought you might-”

“I couldn’t,” Bucky says. His voice might crack. “I never could’ve.”

Natasha stares up at him and he- slowly, painfully- raises his good hand to push the hair away of his forehead to show her the scar at his eyebrow. “Remember what I told you about this?”

“A girl thought you were going to hurt her,” Natasha murmurs. She raises her hand to it and brushes the pads of her fingers over it, feather-light. Bucky wants to lean into her touch, but the pain in his shoulder brings him back.

“You had on that green frock,” Bucky says. “You called me a traitorous pig, you said I would-”

“Burn in the deepest reaches of hell for betraying your country,” Natasha finishes.

Bucky’s mouth twitches. “Yeah.”

Her fingers press against the scar, firmer this time. “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“I’m sorry for not doing more to help.”

He shakes her head. “You were a boy,” she says, and her gaze drops to his mouth, which is still smiling.

Bucky takes a second to think _god, please_ before she’s cupping his face in her hands and bringing him down to kiss her. Her mouth is soft and sure; her lips are chapped. She tastes ever so faintly of blood.

It’s the loveliest kiss Bucky has ever been given.

They’re both breathing hard when they part, leaning their forehead against each other.

“I can’t- be her,” Natasha says. Her eyes are still closed, but the pressure of her forehead is warm. “She died a long time ago, with her family.”

“I know,” Bucky says. “I know.”

Natasha opens her eyes, looking up into his. “I’m not her.”

“I know,” Bucky repeats. “I didn’t fall in love with some long-dead… kid.”

Natasha blinks. Her eyelashes are very long and very close to his face. It’s a while before she speaks: “No?”

“No,” Bucky says, too tired and in pain and relieved to say anything but the truth. “I fell in love with Natasha. This incredible, tough, smart-”

He takes a big breath, continues, “Funny, gorgeous, sarcastic-”

She cuts him off with a kiss. He grins into it as much as he can without ruining the kiss, which is also as much as he can grin while in this much pain. Fuck, his fucking _shoulder_. He hates getting shot.

“Come with me,” Natasha says.

Bucky doesn’t have to consider it. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “I’ll follow you anywhere,” he says, and it feels as good as a vow. He’s never believed in much, but for this- for her, he does.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

A month later, the blood has long since been washed off.

Natasha stands at the front of a boat, watching the city pass slowly by. At the bank of the river, a child waves and Natasha smiles and waves back.

Her hand sneaks into her pocket and brushes against a letter. It’s not the first one she’s sent to Fury, but it’s probably the most important: in it, she writes that she isn’t going to come out to the public as Anastasia.

Her fingers trace the words that sit in the envelope: _I’m not her anymore. I haven’t been for a while. I want to forge my own path without all the ghosts at my heels. I will see you again, Uncle, and soon, but not as her._

She had signed it, as she signs all her letters to him, with _Yours, Natasha_.

Footsteps come up behind her and Natasha feels her smile grow bigger before Bucky’s arms snake around her waist, his chin resting against her shoulder.

“How’re you doing,” he asks.

“Good.” She presses her cheek very gently against his bad shoulder. “You?”

“’S good,” Bucky says. Then, “I’m good.”

She nods, then closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of the city. They will travel far from here soon, and then further. They’re due to meet up with Steve and Tony in another few months, and Natasha is hungry for everything that rests in between now and then, as well as the times that will come after. She can’t remember a time where she was so captivated by the future rather than a lost past.

“You’re quiet today,” Bucky says after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

She turns and kisses his chin. “Just happy, is all.”

“Ah.” Bucky’s eyes turn fond. “That’s alright, then.”

Natasha hums and settles back into his arms. Under them, the boat rocks gently as it takes them into whatever’s next.

 

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).


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